'Between Life and Death': Central Americans Still Heading North J.D. Long-Garcia - The Catholic Sun
go to original March 21, 2013

Kino Border Initiative Documentary (kwhphoto)

NOGALES, Mexico — Twenty-four-year-old Danilo Coronado left Guatemala with four companions. Only Coronado and his cousin were left when he arrived at a Jesuit-run outreach for migrants just south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The outreach, part of the Kino Border Initiative, served more than 58,000 meals in 2012. The initiative also housed more than 300 vulnerable women and children last year and treated nearly 2,500 for dehydration and blisters, among other ailments.

Many Central Americans don’t make it this far. They cross into Mexico, hop on a train and ride as far north as possible before attempting the trek across the Sonoran Desert and into the United States.

Coronado’s friend, Carlos Umberto Fajardo, was drinking when he fell off a train to his death. Two others were kidnapped.

“There is a deluge of immigrants fleeing violence in their country of origin,” said Jesuit Father Ricardo Machuca of the Kino Border Initiative. “They exist somewhere between life and death.”

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