In Veracruz, church shelter helps Central Americans en route to U.S.

Published: 2007-07-26

TIERRA BLANCA, Mexico (CNS) -- On a recent evening at the Guadalupe Migrant Shelter, the atmosphere was festive: Volunteers joked, played guitars and loaded enormous steaming pots of beans and rice into the back of a pickup truck. Then they were off, heading to the dusty railroad tracks that pass through the center of this sweltering city in southern Mexico. Word had it that a train would arrive around midnight with hundreds of unauthorized passengers, Central American migrants who jumped on the rail cars near Mexico's southern border and hitched a ride north toward the United States and its plentiful jobs. For these undocumented travelers, the shelter run by the local parish is a brief haven from the journey's numerous hazards, which include abusive officials, illness, injury, fatigue and bandits. Led by local Deacon Miguel Angel Ochoa Cruz, the shelter's small team is determined to give the migrants "a dignified reception worthy of children of God." Deacon Ochoa likened the migrants' plight to the Old Testament tales of the Israelites searching for the Promised Land. "I like to think of our shelter as an oasis in the desert," Deacon Ochoa said.

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .