We walked to the Federal Courthouse in 35 degrees C and a powerful "dog days" Texan summer sun. I walked with Eddie Canales, a local hero, from Corpus Christi, who discovered that hundreds of unidentified bodies had been found on the Brooks County's rugged ranch land over the past decade.

Since 2012 the numbers of deaths have climbed. Violence and poverty in Central America and Mexico and a crackdown on the other corridors along the US-Mexican border, have funnelled even more migrants through Brooks County, 70 miles north of the Rio Grande and hour and a half from Brownsville.

Walking to the court house Eddie told me that in late July they discovered the six-day-old corpse of a Guatemalan lady, and then last week two more bodies were discovered.

The smugglers (coyotes) leave the migrants on the southern side of the Border Patrol checkpoint of a small town called Falfurrias, and they have to walk north for several hours through bracken on sandy terrain to avoid the Border patrol. Many get disoriented or sick and then perish from heat exposure and dehydration.

Eddie's outfit is called the South Texas Human Rights Center with the mission to end death and suffering on the northern side of the Rio Grande corridor; to help families find their lost loved ones; to increase awareness of the oft fatal plight of migrants; and the militarization of the border.

Eddie's volunteers set up and service water stations out in the scrub. More ranchers but not all are giving permission for them to put up these water stations on their land along the migrant routes to help prevent dehydration and save lives, especially at this time when temperatures are into the mid to high 30s.

There is opposition to this project with talk of poisoning the water and just recently 18 water stations have been destroyed or stolen. Today there are more than 90 stations established covering an area of some 1200 square miles. Home grown acts of kindness inspire the greater ones.

• Article written by Fr Anthony O'Connor, a Marist priest based in Brownsville, Texas.

Garcia explained to me that since the undocumented have no legal status in the United States, they are forced to take undesirable, poorly paid jobs, which offer no benefits. Unlike poor U.S. citizens, undocumented workers and their families cannot receive food stamps, Medicaid, or housing assistance. They are at the lowest rung of American life.

So why do they come?

Garcia said, "They come because most often they and their families are extremely poor, and they cannot find jobs in their native countries that pay a living wage. And that the U.S. has many more low-skilled jobs than there are Americans who are willing to take them."

But why don't they enter legally?

Because there are not enough low-skilled temporary worker visas available. And yet the demand for such workers is quite high. Plus the expense and burdensome government red tape required of employers tempts many of them to use "contractors" who often unscrupulously recruit undocumented workers.

According to "The Hill" (http://bit.ly/1rm6iF0), certain segments of the U.S. economy like agriculture, are overwhelmingly dependent upon illegal immigrants. "In terms of overall numbers, The Department of Labor reports that of the 2.5 million farm workers in the U.S., over half (53 percent) are illegal immigrants. Growers and labor unions put this figure at 70 percent."

Kevin Appleby, director of international migration policy for the Catholic-based Center for Migration Studies, told me the situation is filled with hypocrisy. Among many employers and politicians "there is a nod and a wink" to keep the system benefitting numerous employers at the expense of undocumented workers who have virtually no rights.

Therefore, millions of foreign workers are forced to cross deserts and often face drug gangs to fill vacant American jobs in order to support their very poor families.

To learn more visit Farmworker Justice (www.farmworkerjustice.org).

Saint John XXIII, in his encyclical Pacem in Terris ("Peace on Earth") wrote, "Every human being has the right … when there are just reasons for it … to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there."

Garcia asked that I raise the following questions on behalf of the undocumented: "Should undocumented immigrants have to live in an underground world? Is it right to use closed borders for the purpose of exploiting cheap labor? Why is it so acceptable to have undocumented workers perform the jobs few Americans are willing to do - pick our fruits and vegetables, wash dishes, and work in meat slaughterhouses?"

Lord Jesus, heal our nation's indifference, and inspire us to welcome these strangers as valuable members of your one human family, so that on the Day of Judgment we may gladly hear you say, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me."

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings about Catholic social teaching. His keynote address, "Advancing the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century," has been well received by diocesan and parish gatherings from Santa Clara, Calif. to Baltimore, Md. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net.

Part of Fr O'Connor's ministry, working in the Brownsville Texas parish, is to visit two detention centres, one for captured minor migrants and the other for captured adult migrants.

Given their personal circumstance and after all they have been through, Fr O'Connor offers a listening ear.

Fr O'Connor says that despite their detention he has a quiet admiration for the detained minors.

To get to the detention centre they travel around 1,200 miles.

Outlining a typical journey, Fr O'Connor says the kids ‘train surf'; travel on the top of long trains called the "Bestia" (the Beast), they walk and bus through Central America and Mexico, they cross over the border in the desert where there are no high fences and border control and are either caught or in some cases give themselves up.

The minors that make to the detention centres are treated very well, but many get left in the desert, Fr O'Connor says.

Not all end up in detention centres.

"Others make it and cross the border without getting caught and end up hiding for a time in ‘stack houses', where hundreds are locked in a room", he says.

The atmosphere in the adult detention centre is very different, run by the State, they are more like a prison; barbed wire included, he says.

"Those in red overhauls have serious criminal records in the USA, those in "safety orange" have light criminal records and the blues (majority) are just ‘illegals' caught crossing the divide", he said.

With more than 1,300 adult men detainees Fr O'Connor suggests it is not all negative.

"The last time there we had a full auditorium for mass, lots of pretty gutsy confessions too. Who says "men don't cry?

As well as "locals" currently there are three from Ghana, one from Somalia, people from Ecuador, Peru and five Chinese; whom he thinks made their first communion.

Commenting on his new mission, Fr O'Connor says that after being on mission in Peru and Venezuela for more than 30 years, he says it's taken a bit of time to get his feet on the ground.

With the Peru - Venezuela district closing, Fr O'Connor was asked by the Society of Mary's Superior General, Fr John Hannan, join the Marist mission in Brownsville, USA.

Fr O'Connor says while preferring to work with the more physically poor he can see the wisdom of living to saying, "‘Where the captain sends, the sailor goes'. It works for me".

On Tuesday 8 July, 2014, BBC reports:

"The fate of tens of thousands of child migrants in the United States is turning into a major political problem for President Obama.

"This week he is expected to ask Congress for US$2bn to build detention centres and hire new officials - just to cope with the number of unaccompanied children arriving from Central America.

"Many of President Obama's supporters are upset at plans to send the children back to their home countries."

Fr Tony O'Connor is a New Zealand Marist, working in the United States and part of the Society of Mary USA Province Brownsville Parish ministry.

Sources

• Fr John Murphy, Society of Mary New Zealand
• Image: Press TV

Church leaders have staged fasting and prayer events, starting last week, to spotlight the plight of the immigrant.

Church leaders urged Catholics to call, write and email their congressional representatives, even providing prewritten letters and electronic postcards, to push for immigration reforms.

Kevin Appleby, director of immigration policy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the latest immigration overhaul campaign is larger, bolder and a more unified national effort than in years past.

Polls show that there is broad support among Catholics for immigration reform. The challenge is getting those people to take action.

Sources

Los Angeles Times

Bakersfield Now

Boston Herald

Image: Los Angeles Times

News reports said some Church leaders are planning to use Sunday Masses on Sept. 8 to urge congressional passage of a legislative overhaul that includes a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants

The decision to embrace political action from the pulpit is part of a broader effort by the Roman Catholic Church and other faith groups that support President Obama's call for new immigration laws, the Washington Post reported.

The move includes advertising and phone calls directed at 60 Catholic Republican lawmakers and "prayerful marches" in congressional districts where the issue has become a divisive topic.

"We want to try to pull out all the stops," said Kevin Appleby, the director of migration policy at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who said the immigration issue was at a now-or-never moment.

"They have to hear the message that we want this done, and if you're not successful during the summer, you're not going to win by the end of the year."

Sources

The Washington Post

The New York Times

Image: Reuters/The Washington Post