They remembered at a mass in El Paso (Texas) the record of 557 immigrants who died on the southern border during the last fiscal year.
Ecclesiastical authorities of the United States and Mexico and civil groups remembered this Saturday at a mass in El Paso (Texas) the record of 557 immigrants who died on the southern border during the last fiscal year as part of the activities of the Mexican celebration of the Day. of the Dead.
The thousands of deaths on the border, including the most recent, were honored today at a mass and an altar commemorating the Day of the Dead (a holiday that was celebrated last Monday), reported the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR, in English).
Although the death figures for fiscal year 2021 have not been released by the Border Patrol, Republican Congressman Mike Crapo released them last Wednesday during an immigration hearing.
He noted that “a record” of 557 immigrants died “trying to cross our borders” and that another 1.7 million were detained, also the “highest” figure ever recorded.
According to Border Patrol data, 247 immigrants died at the border during fiscal year 2020, down from 300 and 281 in previous years.
Fernando Garcia, director of BNHR, said it’s an even more grim picture because the Border Patrol only takes into account deaths that agents discovered or were directly involved in.
He criticized the lack of immigration reform by Congress and the Joe Biden government, as well as the maintenance of the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP) of former President Donald Trump that forces asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their cases in the US
In that sense, he urged the Democrat and Congress to honor the legacies of dead immigrants by preventing future deaths of immigrants at the border.
“Their lives mattered, and the responsibility for their deaths falls on the shoulders of the Biden administration and Congress due to the continuation of unjust policies like MPP and inaction to fix our broken and unjust immigration system,” Garcia added.
In the event, in which the Catholic dioceses of El Paso (Texas), Las Cruces and Juárez (Mexico) participate.
“It is time for our elected officials to stop coming up with biased proposals that will never fully address the real needs on the ground and begin to show only a fraction of the bravery of the thousands of migrants who lost their lives due to political cowardice,” he continued Garcia. (I)
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