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LOUISVILLE — Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) has sent $54,000 to the Presbytery of de Cristo to assist border ministry programs that provide humanitarian and spiritual assistance to migrants along the Arizona-Mexico border.
Of the money — taken from designated disaster funds — $35,000 will be evenly divided among seven organizations whose programs range from helping stranded border crossers with medical assistance to providing meals, beds and legal advice.
The seven ministries will receive $5,000 each, according to Stan Hankins, the PDA’s associate for U.S. disaster response.
Hankins said the remaining $19,000 is earmarked for a recently launched initiative — by a group called “No More Deaths” — that’s putting around-the-clock medical aid camps in the desert to assist undocumented migrants crossing the border into Arizona from Mexico.
The goal of the camps is to stop an escalating death toll of undocumented border crossers attempting to cross the Mexican-border on foot through Arizona’s punishing desert terrain.
The grants were prompted by an overture approved by last year’s 215th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) addressing the crisis of migrant worker deaths in the borderlands.
“The presbytery just really appreciates the funds that have come from the denomination because the crisis is actually getting worse,” said the Rev. Lee Sankey, executive presbyter of the Presbytery of de Cristo. “With the heat that we’ve had in the last week there are many more deaths, many more bodies being found.”
PDA coordinates the PC(USA)’s disaster-response operations in the United States and around the world. De Cristo presbytery represents 30 Presbyterian churches in southern Arizona and western New Mexico.
The seven organizations sharing in the grant:
- Border Action Network, Tucson, AZ - Engaged in efforts to end violence being committed against immigrants by private individuals and groups.
- Casa San Juan, Tucson, AZ - Provides a range of services for qualifying immigrants and refugees who seek a revised immigration status.
- Companeros en Mision, Nogales, AZ - Working to establish churches in Sonora, Mexico; participating in holistic evangelism and strengthening reciprocal and mutual ministries between the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico and the PC(USA).
- Healing Borders, Douglas, AZ - Delivers blankets, clothes and other necessities to migrants and their families. Organizes clean-up trips into desert borderlands.
- Humane Borders, Tucson, AZ - Comprised of more than 60 member organizations that include congregations, denominational agencies, human rights organizations, immigration legal assistance organizations, and businesses stretching from California to Texas. Humane Borders maintains more than 40 water stations in the Arizona desert.
- Migrant Center, Altar, Mexico - Provides meals, beds, legal advice and pastoral accompaniment to thousands of migrants passing through the small community, which has become a popular gathering point for migrants crossing the border into Arizona.
- Samaritan Patrol, Tucson, AZ - Renders humanitarian assistance in areas of southern Arizona where Humane Borders has been denied access.
In addition to the grant announced last month, PDA provided the same seven ministries with $10,000 through the presbytery in December.
“PDA recognizes the serious nature of the border crisis and is thankful for the opportunity to partner with these ministries to help minimize the loss of life this summer,” Hankins said.
Meanwhile, the No More Deaths medical aid stations — or “Arks of the Covenant” as they are known — have already started providing water, food and medical assistance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to illegal immigrants crossing into Arizona from Mexico.
The first of three camps planned for the summer opened in Arivaca, AZ, on May 31. A ceremony, which included strong Presbyterian participation, was held at the remote camp site outside Tucson, about 20 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico.
The other Arks of the Covenant desert camps, which are expected to open this month, will be situated near the Arizona border communities of Douglas and Why.
The Tucson Sector of the Border Patrol, which covers much of Arizona, reported 139 deaths in the desert for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Since then the agency has documented 84 people who have died crossing the border since the new fiscal year began Oct. 1.
The Border Patrol says some 2,000 migrants including women and children have died crossing the southwest border since 1998 — many of them because of dehydration.
Last year’s General Assembly overture addressing the increased number of dying migrant workers along the borderlands, stressed the biblical lesson of welcoming strangers.
Submitted by the Presbytery of de Cristo, the overture calls on PDA to be in relationship with congregations and middle governing bodies in the borderlands to determine appropriate ministries and assistance for migrants facing life-threatening situations.
It also called for presbyteries and synods in the borderlands to consult in order to initiate and support ministries that meet the spiritual and physical needs of migrants in crisis.
The overture called on the PC(USA) to declare its opposition to the 1994 federal border policy called “Operation Gatekeeper,” consisting of blocking traditional migration routes through urban areas from San Diego, CA, to Brownsville, TX.
The creators of the border blockade strategy “badly miscalculated in assuming that migrants would not attempt to use more treacherous crossing routes,” the overture said.
It said that different studies confirm that the new policy has pushed migrants into dangerous situations that have led to significant increases in deaths from hypothermia, dehydration and other environmental causes.
The blockade policy has also led to the emergence of organized and predatory smuggling networks,” the overture says, “which frequently abandon migrants and extort money from their families.”
In accordance with the overture, PDA helped plan a consultation in April with middle governing body representatives and border ministry leaders to organize efforts in reducing the number of deaths along the borderlands.
PDA is also working with presbyteries and synods along the border to plan a national Presbyterian gathering in November surrounding the migrant worker crisis. Still in the planning stages, the hope is to bring people together from around the nation to focus on issues of immigration, migrant deaths and border policies, Hankins said.
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