In the Church no one is a stranger...

As a sacrament of unity and thus a sign and a binding force for the whole human race, the Church is the place where illegal immigrants are also recognized and accepted as brothers and sisters. It is the task of the various Dioceses actively to ensure that these people, who are obliged to live outside the safety net of civil society, may find a sense of brotherhood in the Christian community. Solidarity means taking responsibility for those in trouble.”

Excerpt from A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration
from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States

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Dying to Live
The Face of the Migrant

Running Time 5:33

Prayer:

The Justice Prayer

Come, O Holy Spirit!
Come, open us to the wonder, beauty, and dignity of the diversity found in each culture,
in each face, and in each experience we have of the other among us.
Come, fill us with generosity
as we are challenged to let go and allow others to share with us
the goods and beauty of earth.
Come, heal the divisions
that keep us from seeing the face of Christ in all men, women, and children.
Come, free us to stand with and for those
who must leave their own lands in order to find work, security, and welcome in a new land, one that has enough to share.
Come, bring us understanding, inspiration, wisdom, and
the courage needed to embrace change and stay on the journey.
Come, O Holy Spirit,
show us the way.
—(From United States Conference of Catholic Bishops • Justice for Immigrants Campaign
202-541-3352 • www.justiceforimmigrants.org )

Information:

  • America was founded, shaped and built in large measure by immigrants seeking freedom and opportunity. Since 1820, more than 70 million immigrants have entered the United States legally, and each new wave stirred controversy in its day.  In the mid-1800s, Irish immigrants were scorned as lazy drunks too beholden to the pope in Rome.  At the turn of the century, a wave of “New Immigrants”—Poles, Italians, Austro-Hungarians, and Russian Jews—was believed to be different to ever assimilate into American life.  Today the same fears arise about immigrants from Latin American and Asia, but current critics of immigration are as wrong as their counterparts were in previous eras.  Immigration is not undermining the American experiment; it is an integral part of it.  We are a nation of immigrants.”  (Source:  Daniel Grisowld, Director of the Cato Institute for Trade Policy Studies.)
  • “Today an estimated eight million or more people live in the United States without legal documents, and each year the number grows by an estimated 250,000 as more enter illegally or overstay their visas.”  (Source:  “Willing Workers, Fixing the Problem of Illegal Mexican Migration to the United States,” by Daniel Griswold, Center for Trade Policy Studies, October 15, 2002.)
  • Immigrants come to work and reunite with family members. Immigrant labor force participation is consistently higher than native-born, and immigrant workers make up a larger share of the U.S. labor force (12.4%) than they do the U.S. population (11.5%). Moreover, the ratio between immigrant use of public benefits and the amount of taxes they pay is consistently favorable to the U.S. In one estimate, immigrants earn about $240 billion a year, pay about $90 billion a year in taxes,and use about $5 billion in public benefits. In another cut of the data, immigrant tax payments total $20 to $30 billion more than the amount of government services they use.  (Source: “Questioning Immigration Policy – Can We Afford to Open OurArms?”, Friends Committee on National Legislation Document #G-606-DOM, January 25, 1996. www.fas.org/pub/gen/fcnl/immigra.html)

Suggested Reading

Reflection Questions:

  1. Are today’s immigrants similar or different from immigrants in the 20th century?
  2. Do you think the immigrants are justified in leaving their country and coming to the United States?
  3. What do you believe motivates them?
  4. What would you do in their situation?

Service Opportunities

What good can one person do? We must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time... and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. -- Pope Paul VI

Please share your ideas for tangible ways Notre Dame graduates and Notre Dame Alumni Clubs can celebrate and reach out to hispanic immigrants in their communities. Scroll to the bottom of this section to send your suggestions to us. As ideas come forward, we will post them on this site. For starters here's a few suggestions:

  • Talk with the pastor of an Hispanic church and gathers ideas for outreach to the parishioners.
  • Organize a family volunteer program and join Hispanic families to repair, paint, etc at their local school. We have found local principals and pastors very grateful for this collaborative effort.
  • Celebrate special liturgical ceremonies and Masses with the Hispanic community. Ask the Pastor about participating in unique spiritual devotions around the Blessed Mother, Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. Here are a few upcoming opportunities:
  • Los Dias de los Muertos means Day of the Dead, but it is really a Mexican celebration of both life and death. Held on November 1st and 2nd, celebrants honor the spirit of family ancestors. Spirits of children are thought to return on the 1st and adults on the 2nd. Altars are built, and then covered with food and decorations. Cemeteries are decorated with fresh flowers. Paper mache sculptures depict the dead in an everyday context, such as skeletons, and most are comical in nature. Through music and feasting, everyone embraces the totality of both life and death. It is a time of celebration.
  • Las Posadas begins on the 16th of December and continues for the next nine nights. Through candlelight processions and festive parties, participants remember the long journey undertaken by Joseph and Mary, and their search for lodging in Bethlehem. In fact, "posada" means "shelter". A woman and man portraying Mary and Joseph lead the procession, followed by children in the roles of angels, The Three Kings, and shepherds. Others carry candles, paper lanterns and banners as they proceed from house to house in search of a place to stay. At each residence along the procession route they are refused shelter, until at last, they are welcomed in at the last home. Then, a grand party with food for all
  • The celebration of the day of the Vírgen de Guadalupe, December 12 is the most universal of all Mexican Holidays. The Celebration centers around the image left on the cloak of Juan Diego. It is found literally everywhere and on everything in Mexico.

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Dying to Live
Push-Pull and Politics

Running Time 5:08

Prayer:

Grant me courage to serve others, for in service there is true life.
Give me honesty and patience, so that I can work with other workers.
Bring forth song and celebration, so that the Spirit will be alive among us.
Let the Spirit flourish and grow, so that we will never tire of the struggle.
Let us remember those who have died for justice, for they have given us life.
Help us love even those who hate us, so we can change the world.
—Prayer on the wall at CCAMYN (Centro Comunitario de Atencion Migrante y Necesitado) in Altar, Mexico.

Information:

  • Mexico's minimum wage is $4.50 a day.  Most workers earn 2.5 times the minimum wage, $11.25 per day.  Is this (Mexico: Migrants, Emigration, Economy  Migration News Vol. 14 No. 2, April 2007)
  • Mexico had a total labor force of 42.2 million in September 2006, according to Mexico's statistical agency INEGI, including 13.6 million in the private sector social security system, IMSS. The number of formal sector jobs rose by 880,000 in 2006, as compared to the 577,000 increase of 2005 and 319,000 of 2004. A third of Mexican workers are in formal jobs, and many of the newly created formal jobs offer fixed-term contracts of one to two years. There were only 14 million permanent jobs registered with IMSS in 2006, meaning that over half of Mexicans are in the informal sector. The real wages of IMSS-covered workers have been rising less than two percent a year.  (Source:  “Mexico: Remittances, Jobs, Economy,”  Migration News Vol. 14 No. 3, July 2007, http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=3299_0_2_0)
  • Freeman notes that (after accounting for any differences in schooling) immigrants in the United States “earn eight times as much as those in low-wage countries from which the immigrants come” (p. 155) (Source: “A Summary of Richard B. Freeman’s “People Flows in Globalization” Journal of Economic Perspectives, volume 20, no. 2, Fall 2006 by Jeffrey H. Bergstrand, Professor, Department of Finance, Mendoza College of Business and Fellow, Kellogg Institute for International Studies.)
  • Since late 1994, the California part of the U.S.-Mexico border has been a testing ground for Operation Gatekeeper, a strategy aimed at blocking traditional border crossing routes. More than a billion dollars has been spent on Gatekeeper, but the new strategy has not prevented illegal entries. It has simply shifted them to the mountains and deserts east of San Diego. Meanwhile, migrant deaths have increased by 500%. Nevertheless, the U.S. Border Patrol extended Gatekeeper into Yuma, Arizona and has exported the new strategy to other parts of the Southwest border.(www.stopgatekeeper.org, Accessed October 3rd, 2007.)
  • Between  1961 and 1989, in the hope of a better life and a more promising future on the other side of the Berlin Wall, eighty people were killed; fifty-nine of them were shot dead by East German guards who protected the border.  Between 1995 and 2002, in the hope of finding a better life and amore promising future in the United States, more than 2,000 immigrants have died trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border…Those who lost their lives attempting to cross from East to West Germany were considered heroes in the United States, yet those who attempted to cross from Latin America to North America are often considered criminals. (Source:  “Border of Death, Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit,”  Daniel Groody, Rowman & Littlefield, Pg. 14.)
  • In the past 20 years, total U.S. employment had increased by 59%, surpassing 126 million jobs, while the unemployment rate has dropped from 7.7% to 5.2%. Even the total number of unemployed people in the country has dropped…. First, while immigrants do increase the supply of labor in the country, they also increase the demand for labor. By starting businesses and spending their money on products made by both natives and other immigrants, they create at least as many jobs as they fill. That's why immigrants have a minimal impact on the labor market.  (Source:  “More Immigration Myths, by Stuart Anderson, CATO Institute, January 30, 1997 http://www.freetrade.org/node/566)
  • There are an estimated 11.6 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States as of January 2006. Nearly 4.2 million had entered in 2000 or later. An estimated 6.6 million of the 11.6 million unauthorized residents were from Mexico.
  • Mexico continues to be the leading source of unauthorized immigration to the United States. The estimated unauthorized immi­grant population from Mexico increased from 4.7 million in 2000 to 6.6 million in January 2006.
  • California remained the leading state of residence of the unauthorized resident population in 2006, with 2.8 million. The next leading state, Texas, had 1.6 million unauthorized residents, fol­lowed by Florida with nearly 1 million.

Suggested Reading

Reflection Questions:

  1. Do you think the United States would suffer or gain without the labor of the immigrants?
  2. Do you think the common good would benefit or be hindered by some kind of legalization of the undocumented work force?

Service Opportunities

What good can one person do? We must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time... and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. -- Pope Paul VI

Please share your ideas for tangible ways Notre Dame graduates and Notre Dame Alumni Clubs can celebrate and reach out to hispanic immigrants in their communities. Scroll to the bottom of this section to send your suggestions to us. As ideas come forward, we will post them on this site. For starters here's a few suggestions:

  • Talk with the pastor of an Hispanic church and gathers ideas for outreach to the parishioners.
  • Organize a family volunteer program and join Hispanic families to repair, paint, etc at their local school. We have found local principals and pastors very grateful for this collaborative effort.
  • Celebrate special liturgical ceremonies and Masses with the Hispanic community. Ask the Pastor about participating in unique spiritual devotions around the Blessed Mother, Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. Here are a few upcoming opportunities:
  • Los Dias de los Muertos means Day of the Dead, but it is really a Mexican celebration of both life and death. Held on November 1st and 2nd, celebrants honor the spirit of family ancestors. Spirits of children are thought to return on the 1st and adults on the 2nd. Altars are built, and then covered with food and decorations. Cemeteries are decorated with fresh flowers. Paper mache sculptures depict the dead in an everyday context, such as skeletons, and most are comical in nature. Through music and feasting, everyone embraces the totality of both life and death. It is a time of celebration.
  • Las Posadas begins on the 16th of December and continues for the next nine nights. Through candlelight processions and festive parties, participants remember the long journey undertaken by Joseph and Mary, and their search for lodging in Bethlehem. In fact, "posada" means "shelter". A woman and man portraying Mary and Joseph lead the procession, followed by children in the roles of angels, The Three Kings, and shepherds. Others carry candles, paper lanterns and banners as they proceed from house to house in search of a place to stay. At each residence along the procession route they are refused shelter, until at last, they are welcomed in at the last home. Then, a grand party with food for all
  • The celebration of the day of the Vírgen de Guadalupe, December 12 is the most universal of all Mexican Holidays. The Celebration centers around the image left on the cloak of Juan Diego. It is found literally everywhere and on everything in Mexico.

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Dying to Live
The Journey

Running Time 7:29

Prayer:

Heart of Jesus full of love and mercy, I watch over my sister and brother migrants. Have pity on them and protect them; they suffer mistreatment and humiliations on their way, looked on as dangerous by most, and marginalized for being foreigners. Help us to respect them and appreciate their dignity. Touch with your goodness the hearts of we who see them pass by. Take care of their families until they return home, not with broken hearts but with their hopes fulfilled.
—Prayer on the wall at CCAMYN (Centro Comunitario de Atencion Migrante y Necesitado) in Altar, Mexico.

Information:

  • “Smugglers were charging $1,500 to $3,000 to take migrants across the Mexico-US border.”  (Source:  Senate: Immigration Reform Stalls, Migration News Vol. 14 No. 3, July 2007,  http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=3294_0_2_0)
  • Mexico's minimum wage is $4.50 a day, with most workers earning 2.5 times the minimum wage, $11.25  (Source: “Mexico: Migrants, Emigration, Economy,” Migration News Vol. 14 No. 2, April 2007, http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=3275_0_2_0)
  • “One of the largest and deadliest areas along the border is the Imperial Valley of Southern California…it is home to bobcats, rattlesnakes (sidewinders), raccoons, coyotes, badgers, skunks, rats, scorpions, and illegal immigrants.  Temperature get as high as 120 degrees in the summer and there are virtually no water sources in the desert north of the border.”  (Source: “Border of Death, Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit,”  Daniel Groody, Rowman & Littlefield, Pg. 23)
  • Migrants continue to die in automobile accidents and from drownings while crossing waterways into California and Texas, but more than half the total, perished while crossing the Arizona deserts, the busiest illegal immigrant corridor along the nation's 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
  • The thousands of Central Americans who take the “Chiapas-Mayab” railroad at the southern border (estimates run at 5,000 a month), for a ride to Lechería call the train “the beast,” since it often “swallows” and dismembers them.
  • Many migrants die crushed under its wheels while trying to board the moving train. Every month, seven or eight migrants with severed limbs end up in the regional hospital in Tapachula..  Miguel Pickard is an economist and researcher, co-founder of CIEPAC (Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Políticas de Acción Comunitaria www.ciepac.org) in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico and an analyst with the IRC Americas Program (online at www.americaspolicy.org).

Suggested Reading

Reflection Questions:

  1. Do you think we will be successful at sealing the border?
  2. Do you think more humane measures should be instituted to prevent immigrant deaths?

Service Opportunities

What good can one person do? We must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time... and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. -- Pope Paul VI

Please share your ideas for tangible ways Notre Dame graduates and Notre Dame Alumni Clubs can celebrate and reach out to hispanic immigrants in their communities. Scroll to the bottom of this section to send your suggestions to us. As ideas come forward, we will post them on this site. For starters here's a few suggestions:

  • Talk with the pastor of an Hispanic church and gathers ideas for outreach to the parishioners.
  • Organize a family volunteer program and join Hispanic families to repair, paint, etc at their local school. We have found local principals and pastors very grateful for this collaborative effort.
  • Celebrate special liturgical ceremonies and Masses with the Hispanic community. Ask the Pastor about participating in unique spiritual devotions around the Blessed Mother, Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. Here are a few upcoming opportunities:
  • Los Dias de los Muertos means Day of the Dead, but it is really a Mexican celebration of both life and death. Held on November 1st and 2nd, celebrants honor the spirit of family ancestors. Spirits of children are thought to return on the 1st and adults on the 2nd. Altars are built, and then covered with food and decorations. Cemeteries are decorated with fresh flowers. Paper mache sculptures depict the dead in an everyday context, such as skeletons, and most are comical in nature. Through music and feasting, everyone embraces the totality of both life and death. It is a time of celebration.
  • Las Posadas begins on the 16th of December and continues for the next nine nights. Through candlelight processions and festive parties, participants remember the long journey undertaken by Joseph and Mary, and their search for lodging in Bethlehem. In fact, "posada" means "shelter". A woman and man portraying Mary and Joseph lead the procession, followed by children in the roles of angels, The Three Kings, and shepherds. Others carry candles, paper lanterns and banners as they proceed from house to house in search of a place to stay. At each residence along the procession route they are refused shelter, until at last, they are welcomed in at the last home. Then, a grand party with food for all
  • The celebration of the day of the Vírgen de Guadalupe, December 12 is the most universal of all Mexican Holidays. The Celebration centers around the image left on the cloak of Juan Diego. It is found literally everywhere and on everything in Mexico.

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Dying to Live
The Border and Beyond

Running Time 7:49

Prayer:

God, we have failed to understand and accept the great demands placed upon us by your kingdom. We have joined your causes, but have lost interest. We promised to be courageous, but find ourselves afraid. We want to be sensitive, but find ourselves hard and callous. We are confronted with great opportunities for service in the work of justice and peace, but fail to take advantage of them. Forgive us when we let our comfort stand in the way of the cries and struggles of the poor, the hungry, the sick, the prisoner. We have allowed self to blind us and have forgotten that whatever is done to any one of your children is done to you. Have mercy, 0 God, and hear our confessions. Take our limitations and turn them into possibilities for service.
—National Farm Worker Ministry

Information:

  • “The United States and Mexico share a special relationship that requires focused attention upon joint concerns.  The realities of migration between both nations require comprehensive policy responses implemented in unison by both countries.  The current relationship is weakened by inconsistent and divergent policies that are not coordinated and, in many cases, address only the symptoms of the migration phenomenon and not its root causes.”  (Sources: “Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope,” A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States, Pg. 31)
  • The Catholic Bishops’ Call for Comprehensive Immigration Reform includes the following elements:  Global anti-poverty efforts, Expended opportunities to reunite families; Temporary Worker Program, Broad-based legalization; Restoration of due process.  (Source: Justice for Immigrants Campaign, http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org/bishops_call.html)
  • “The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which ended so tragically in New York, the Washington, DC area, and Pennsylvania, have placed national security concerns at the forefront of the immigration debate and have added another dimension to the migration relationship between the United States and Mexico.  Certain security actions are a necessary response to credible terrorist threats, such as improved intelligence sharing and screening, enhanced visa and passport security, and thorough checks at the United States-Mexico border.  Other actions, however, such as reducing illegal immigration between the two nations, do not serve to make the United States or Mexico more secure.  We urge both nations to cooperate in this area, but not to enact joint policies that undermine human rights, reduce illegal immigration, or deny asylum seekers opportunity for protection.” (Sources: “Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope,” A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States, Pg. 46)
  • The 16.6 billion dollar figure that Mexicans in the United States remitted home during 2004 is equivalent to US$45.5 million per day entering Mexico, overtaking the amount invested by foreign corporations, or income from tourism, or even net income from the sale of oil.
  • In Mexico’s countryside migration is often seen as a better tool for climbing the social ladder than education.  Even if they finish secondary or high school, the young often cannot find adequate employment or a decent wage in their country. In migrating, academic degrees are of little or no use given the jobs most of them will be offered.
  • Since 1994 the United States has spent $20 billion to “strengthen” its borders. Some $3 billion went for U.S. border security in 2003 and the figure will more than double to $6.2 billion for 2005.
  • Designed by the Defense Department’s Center for Low Intensity Conflicts, the special “operations” to seal the border (Gatekeeper, Hold the Line, Crossroads, Blockage, Safe Guard, Río Grande, Vanguard, Desert Control, and others), have succeeded in making it nearly impossible for migrants to cross at previously frequented border locations.
  • They have not stopped the flow, only shifted it to more dangerous areas, for example toward the Arizona desert or the mountains west of Mexicali-Calexico. Human rights organizations on both sides of the border have counted 4,000 (known) migrants who died trying to cross the border, the majority in inhospitable terrain.   Miguel Pickard is an economist and researcher, co-founder of CIEPAC (Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Políticas de Acción Comunitaria www.ciepac.org) in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico and an analyst with the IRC Americas Program (online at www.americaspolicy.org).

Suggested Reading

Reflection Questions:

  1. What do you think about the Way of the Immigrant as being the Way of the Cross?
  2. Do you think our country is helped or threatened by Mexican immigrants?

Service Opportunities

What good can one person do? We must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time... and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. -- Pope Paul VI

Please share your ideas for tangible ways Notre Dame graduates and Notre Dame Alumni Clubs can celebrate and reach out to hispanic immigrants in their communities. Scroll to the bottom of this section to send your suggestions to us. As ideas come forward, we will post them on this site. For starters here's a few suggestions:

  • Talk with the pastor of an Hispanic church and gathers ideas for outreach to the parishioners.
  • Organize a family volunteer program and join Hispanic families to repair, paint, etc at their local school. We have found local principals and pastors very grateful for this collaborative effort.
  • Celebrate special liturgical ceremonies and Masses with the Hispanic community. Ask the Pastor about participating in unique spiritual devotions around the Blessed Mother, Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. Here are a few upcoming opportunities:
  • Los Dias de los Muertos means Day of the Dead, but it is really a Mexican celebration of both life and death. Held on November 1st and 2nd, celebrants honor the spirit of family ancestors. Spirits of children are thought to return on the 1st and adults on the 2nd. Altars are built, and then covered with food and decorations. Cemeteries are decorated with fresh flowers. Paper mache sculptures depict the dead in an everyday context, such as skeletons, and most are comical in nature. Through music and feasting, everyone embraces the totality of both life and death. It is a time of celebration.
  • Las Posadas begins on the 16th of December and continues for the next nine nights. Through candlelight processions and festive parties, participants remember the long journey undertaken by Joseph and Mary, and their search for lodging in Bethlehem. In fact, "posada" means "shelter". A woman and man portraying Mary and Joseph lead the procession, followed by children in the roles of angels, The Three Kings, and shepherds. Others carry candles, paper lanterns and banners as they proceed from house to house in search of a place to stay. At each residence along the procession route they are refused shelter, until at last, they are welcomed in at the last home. Then, a grand party with food for all
  • The celebration of the day of the Vírgen de Guadalupe, December 12 is the most universal of all Mexican Holidays. The Celebration centers around the image left on the cloak of Juan Diego. It is found literally everywhere and on everything in Mexico.

This website is a collaborative effort of the Notre Dame Alumni Association and The Center for Latino Spirituality and Culture in Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies.

Dying to Live

“Dying to Live: A Migrant’s Journey” is a profound look at the human face of the migrant. It explores who these people are, why they leave their homes and what they face in their journey. Drawing on the insights of Pulitzer Prize winning photographers, theologians, church and congressional leaders, activists, musicians and the immigrants themselves, this film explores the place of conflict, pain and hope along the US-Mexico border. It is a reflection on the human struggle for a more dignified life and the search to find God in the midst of it all. The film was produced by Father Daniel Groody, CSC -- assistant professor of theology and director of the Center for Latino Spirituality and Culture in Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies. Fr. Groody has been studying Mexican immigration for more than 15 years.

Order Dying to Live

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