Bienvenidos | Welcome
As I have been sharing about our Strategic Plan, I find myself dwelling on our priority of holistic accompaniment. Some of our other initiatives are more readily legible. For example, most people know what I mean when I say policy change or local hospitality.
Holistic accompaniment contains more layers than first meets the eye. Yes, it means we want to support migrants holistically, attending to each person’s body, mind, and spirit. But the invitation into holistic accompaniment extends further. It’s a call to join our hearts, hands, and spirits with our siblings in migration.
To accompany migrants means to recognize that we are all children of God. It means opening ourselves to face the harm our current policies are causing on real people with hopes, dreams, and families. These cruel effects are all too visible during the summer months in Nogales, when we encounter migrants whose entire beings have been brutalized by days in the desert. Holistic accompaniment calls on us to give care and also to bear witness with our whole selves.
In this newsletter, you will encounter the ways that others are drawing close to migrants in this aspect of holistic accompaniment. You will also find opportunities to accompany migrants yourself. It is our joy to offer them to you, our wider community.Standing in solidarity with migrants is both our holy responsibility and our distinct privilege. We thank each person who supports us in living it out. Together, we can create a world where migration with dignity is possible.
Blessings,
Joanna Williams
Executive Director Kino Border Initiative
Students in the Desert: A Pilgrimage of Solidarity
Today, we invite you to come on a pilgrimage through the desert with a group of teenagers who visited in March. In the Sonoran desert, they encountered items that migrants left behind in their arduous journeys. We call these relics. Each relic serves as an invitation into solidarity and action. READ MORE.
Migrant Story: Death in the Desert
Today, we are returning to a wrenching story that we first shared in 2017. Former Director of Mexican Programs, Father Samuel Lozano de los Santos, S.J., encountered a young man in the comedor who was weeping. His wife had perished in the Sonoran desert. We are sharing this story today because the policies that caused this tragedy are still in place today. As a result, we encounter migrants daily who face the same harrowing experience. READ MORE.
July-August Media Report
This month, we were glad to see the Inflation Reduction Act pass without any anti-immigrant amendments attached and the Biden administration move to end Remain in Mexico. We note the bilateral talks between the Biden Administration and Mexican President Lopez Obrador and call upon the two leaders to center migrant rights. READ MORE.
Announcements
We bring you exciting new opportunities to stand in solidarity with migrants, including a new resource to foster conversation in your own community and a chance to chat with our Executive Director about our new Strategic Plan. Explore and find the opportunity to go deeper that fits best with you. READ MORE
*New Opportunity* Community Conversations: #WelcomeLikeJesus
Are you ready to #WelcomeLikeJesus? The Kino Border Initiative is so grateful to partner with you to create spaces in communities across the US where we can gather to:
- Share honestly about our own experiences of welcome and exclusion, and the impact that this has on each of us individually and as a community.
- Learn about what motivates people to migrate to the US-Mexico border today.
- Reflect on what it means to #WelcomeLikeJesus, and imagine how we can do this together in our community in a way that moves us beyond our comfort zones.
During this training, we will equip you with the tools to lead others into this space and facilitate a welcoming environment that can foster transformation toward solidarity with migrants.
