Immigration Advocates to Reenact Nativity Scene Along the 'Path of Death' Esther Yu-Hsi Lee - ThinkProgress
go to original December 13, 2014

Border wall in Friendship Park dividing U.S. and Mexico (Getty Images)

In their 21st annual event, immigration activists plan to gather at the U.S.-Mexico border wall to reenact the Biblical figures Joseph and Mary’s search for shelter before Jesus’ birth, a journey that parallels the trek to America made by many migrant border crossers. The traditional Mexican reenactment of the journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, called a posada, will take place at a binational meeting area in San Diego, California, and will focus on the treatment of the 68,000 unaccompanied children apprehended at the southern border this year by law enforcement officials as well as border deaths.

“We thought it would be important to highlight children and give them dignity for their journey,” Pedro Rios, director of the Quaker social justice organization American Friends Services Committee (AFSC), told ThinkProgress. “This is a call for humans to be treated with respect and dignity.”

This year’s posada theme “Unto Us a Child is Born” features activists who will light luminaries with the names of migrant border crossers who perished trying to make it into the United States. Activists are expected to give speeches paralleling Joseph and Mary’s journey with that of unaccompanied children who make the dangerous 2,500-mile trek from the three most violent Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras only to be apprehended by border agents along the southern border.

“I found the names of 50 people who recently perished, but there are a lot more people who are unknown,” Rios said, explaining that the militarization of the southern border has caused countless deaths of migrants who try to get around border agents only to get lost in the desert. “The border wall is leaving a path of death.”

Read the rest at ThinkProgress

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