What I saw at the border
By Juan Wulff | America Magazine | November 14, 2024
One of the most moving parts of our visit was seeing people do exactly that at La Posada Providencia, the only long-term shelter in the Rio Grande Valley. The Sisters of Divine Providence began their sponsorship of La Posada in 1989. La Posada is quiet, located amid the fields of a small rural community. The free shelter has high-quality private housing, playgrounds, bikes, community kitchens, classes in English as a second language and staff centered around one goal: empowering the migrants.
Denise Hernández, the operations manager there, highlighted to us how the people who come to La Posada “want to come and participate actively in this economy.” Migrants usually leave La Posada after a couple of months, most with a job and a place to stay, some even with a car. They often return, once established, to express their thankfulness for La Posada, which they feel gave them a chance to succeed.
The preferential option for the poor and vulnerable is a standard that results in a vast amount of good, a standard we must hold ourselves to. La Posada is not a miracle—it is the product of solidarity, hard work and organization. We must stop approaching immigration always looking for how best to keep people out. Instead, we must approach immigration with the goal of empowering as many people as possible. We cannot, as a people who seek to uphold the God-given dignity of all people, hoard the American title and the American dream for those only who were born here.
Not only can we break the cycle, we must break the cycle. In the short term, we must advocate for much-needed charity to the people suffering in this moment. In the long term, we must strive for standards like those of La Posada, where the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable in our country is not a mere suggestion, but a lived and long-term truth.
For the full news story, CLICK HERE.
Pictured: Children play while adults wait beneath the shade of the courtyard at Senda de Vida in Reynosa, Mexico, in May 2024 (OSV News photo/Tom McCarthy Jr.)
