The Tablet at the Border: One Town’s View

Near the end of S. 15th Street in Hidalgo, Texas, the road turns from smooth pavement to pothole-ridden dirt. Both sides of the street are no longer lined with local neighborhoods, but instead battered fences at the edge of desolate fields.  

U.S. and Mexican Bishops Call for Better Migration Policies at Border

As the number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border continues to soar, more than a dozen Catholic bishops from both countries issued a reminder April 1 that “there is a shared responsibility of all nations to preserve human life and provide for safe, orderly, and humane immigration, including the right to asylum.”

Laredo Church Authorities Waiting for Influx of Immigrants

From conversations with federal government officials at the border, Bishop James Tamayo of Laredo estimates that there are at least 800 families — thousands of people — waiting on the Mexico side of the Laredo border for entry into the United States.

COVID-19 Pandemic Makes Human Trafficking Worse, Panel Says

Flor Molina crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her trafficker in 2002. At the time, she was under the impression the trip would last six months, provide housing, and enough money to return to Mexico to open a sewing shop and provide for her three children.

Center for Migration Studies Looks at Immigrants’ Health Risks

The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) of New York issued a 40-page study, “Mapping Key Determinants of Immigrants’ Health in Brooklyn and Queens,” on Feb. 23 and looked at the two boroughs neighborhood by neighborhood to determine which non-citizen immigrant communities are most at risk.

Bishop Healy Vaulted From Slavery to Servant of God

James Augustine Healy in 1875 became the first bishop of African-American heritage in the U.S. He was the son of an Irish cotton planter father and a mixed-race mother who was a slave. This family from Georgia also produced two other priests, two nuns, a hardware dealer, and a famous ship captain.

Biden Signs Flurry of Executive Orders In His First Days 

In his first days in office, President Joe Biden wasted no time trying to reverse his predecessor’s policies. He signed several executive orders seeking to overturn policies that former President Donald Trump put in place.

Asylum-Seekers Along Mexican Border Express Hope With Biden in Office

Idalia Reyes remembers the desperation that drove her to seek out smugglers to take her children, unaccompanied, to the United States. Reyes and her children lived in a tent camp along the Rio Grande, where they endured crime, cold snaps and infestations of insects and snakes.