The influx of migration over the past months has strained the resources of nonprofit organizations, including Catholic Charities of Southern New Mexico. The organization assists refugees and asylum seekers, but in terms of the current crisis at the border, they are seeing a rise of migrants in need.
Ken Ferrone is the Executive Director of Catholic Charities of Southern New Mexico. The organization has a legal service program that provides support for refugees and asylum seekers. He explained that for the past few months, they have seen a significant rise of people in need.
“We are here to serve the poor, and we don’t discriminate against anyone. We don’t ask people what church or religion they are. We just say ‘how can we help you,’ and so we don’t ask people about their immigration status. We do research with them. We find out if there is relief opportunities. If there is no relief opportunities, we will ask them to turn themselves into border patrol, and some of them, we’ve encouraged clients to go back to their home countries because they don’t have any relief [options] whatsoever.“
Ferrone said that to ease suffering at the border and in border communities, legislative change on the national level is needed.
“The challenges that we’ve been facing is there hasn’t been [any] systematic or comprehensive legal immigration reform in this country. It’s the responsibility of [The United States] Congress to do that. And unfortunately, whether it’s been a Republican Congress or Democratic Congress, there has been no immigration reform for over 20, 30 years,” he said.
New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Lujan visited Las Cruces recently. He said that he was happy to see that President Biden visited El Paso, but stressed that there is much legislative work to be done.
“It was important for President Biden to visit the border, and to come and talk with personnel, as well as the conversations that have taken place in Mexico with the President of Mexico and Canada about challenges that we face as the Americas as well,” he said. “More must be done to solve challenges within immigration reform. Comprehensive immigration reform is absolutely needed … There must be a way for us to find compromise, and to have strong reform that is humane, that is strong, and that reflects the needs all across America and our communities as well.”
Ferrone said that when partisan politics stop progress, the vulnerable population of migrants are the ones who suffer the most.
“In this country, [immigration] seems to be more of a political issue, and that’s very unfortunate because these poor asylum seekers and people seeking better lives for themselves and their children are caught in the middle. That’s a situation that we deal with every day.”
Ferrone said that even though there has been a large influx of migrants seeking help at the organization, they won’t turn anybody away.
