NOGALES, Arizona — More than 100 Catholic bishops, nuns, priests, and churchgoers took part in a border procession Friday evening, calling on the U.S. government to treat migrants with dignity and respect.
The march began in Nogales, Arizona, and crossed into its sister city in the Mexican state of Sonora. Organizers timed the event to coincide with celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of American independence.
Tucson Bishop James Misko led a Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Nogales, which sits overlooking the U.S.-Mexico border fence. “We want to be well together. This is what the Church is all about,” he said during the service.
After Mass concluded, clergy and parishioners formed a line and prayed the rosary together as they walked across the border, where they were met by their Mexican counterparts.
Sister Eileen McKenzie, a Franciscan nun who works with migrants in the Ambos Nogales area, described the extreme conditions. “The heat is terrible, the heat is actually deadly,” she said, as temperatures climbed to 96 degrees Fahrenheit.
She called the procession a powerful moment of solidarity, adding: “We realized, there are people crossing the desert right now, and they don’t have any (respite). It puts perspective on it. There are more and more people who are going farther and farther out. They are more desperate and they are still crossing.”
Catholic leaders across the United States, along with Pope Leo, have spoken out against Trump-era immigration policies, specifically criticizing mass deportations, conditions inside detention facilities, and enforcement raids — actions they say are causing fear and suffering among migrant communities.
The criticism comes as the Supreme Court issued two rulings Thursday allowing the Trump administration to turn away asylum seekers at the border and remove deportation protections from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants.
In November, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement expressing sadness over what it called “the vilification of immigrants,” while also raising concerns about conditions in detention centers and limited access to pastoral care.
Bishop Mark Seitz, who leads the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, said he has been closely monitoring the situation at the Camp East Montana detention center at nearby Fort Bliss. He said religious chaplains have sometimes been turned away from visiting detainees there.
“Most of these people that are being detained right now, they’re not elderly people. They’re not generally sick people. And yet they’re dying. And, there are many emergency calls from there to people who are suffering mightily,” Seitz said.
He added that Catholic priests have only been permitted to celebrate one Mass per week — on Sundays — with space for roughly 100 worshippers, a small fraction of the more than 1,000 people being held at the facility.
“These are people, 80% of which are probably Catholic and, and many of which, because of their circumstances, are even more needing God in their lives. It’s so unfortunate that we can’t serve them,” Seitz said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security previously told Reuters that “ICE is always looking at ways to improve (its) detention facilities,” pointing to a change in how the facility’s contract is managed following three deaths there between December and January.
Federal officials waved the bishops and faithful across the border into Mexico, where they continued praying the rosary and followed a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Bystanders smiled as the procession made its way to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, where the local Nogales bishop welcomed the group.
Dylan Corbett, executive director of the HOPE Border Institute in El Paso and a member of a Vatican group that advocates for migrant rights, said Friday’s Mass was part of a broader, ongoing effort by Catholics worldwide.
“In Central America, the exodus that we’ve seen from Venezuela, and (in) Haiti, the Church is there providing humanitarian support, standing up structures to be able to reintegrate those who have been deported, providing witness and also advocacy to advance policies that are more humane and will result in a more human and compassionate treatment of migrants,” he said.
On July 4th — the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence — Pope Leo is scheduled to celebrate Mass in Lampedusa, an Italian island where hundreds of thousands of migrants have arrived over the years after fleeing war and poverty in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
