Video: Faith-based shelter gives migrants ‘hospitality, some semblance of humanity’

Volunteers at Casa Vides, a shelter for migrants in El Paso, explain how the non-profit provides comfort for people trying to navigate the U.S. immigration system. Casa Vides is one shelter in a sanctuary network for refugees and homeless poor managed by the faith-based Annunciation House. This video story was produced as part of a collaborative reporting project with Borderzine staff and Youth Radio. http://borderzine.com/2018/06/summer-job-at-el-paso-migrant-shelter-proves-vastly-different-experience-for-notre-dame-students/

Brief reunion of families at border fence makes a point: walls divide, hugs unite

Maria De Jesus leans against the metal fence that blocks the Rio Grande, a river that for centuries has marked the division between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. A native of Durango, Mexico, Maria, 82, has traveled more than 600 miles by bus for the chance to see her only son and 15-year-old granddaughter. She saw them last 12 years ago when they emigrated from Durango to El Paso. “I didn’t know my granddaughter; I hadn’t seen her since she was 3 years old, and it’s not the same watching them grow in pictures,” De Jesus said in Spanish. On a recent sunny October day, De Jesus was among the 300 families, or more than 1000 people, waiting in line on the Juarez side of the river for a chance to spend three minutes with their loved ones on the U.S. side.