She was a mentor and friend to me and countless others. Rest in peace, Sister Renilde. I’m blessed to have known and worked with you over the past few years at Newman.
Here are some grassroot organizations that are doing admirable work in the southern part of the Grand Canyon State that relates to the human rights facet of immigration and border policies in the U.S.:
Border Action Network formed in 1999 and works with immigrant and border communities in southern Arizona to ensure that our rights are respected, our human dignity upheld and that our communities are healthy places to live. We are a membership-based organization that combines grassroots community organizing, leadership development, litigation and policy advocacy.
No More Deaths is an organization whose mission is to end death and suffering on the U.S./Mexico border through civil initiative: the conviction that people of conscience must work openly and in community to uphold fundamental human rights. Our work embraces the Faith-Based Principles for Immigration Reform and focuses on the following themes:
• Direct aid that extends the right to provide humanitarian assistance
• Witnessing and responding
• Consciousness raising
• Global movement building
• Encouraging human immigration policy.
Humane Borders, motivated by faith, offers humanitarian assistance to those in need through more than 70 emergency water stations on and near the U.S.-Mexican border.
“They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.”
— Isaiah 49:10
Coalición de Derechos Humanos (“The Human Rights Coalition”) is a grassroots organization which promotes respect for human/civil rights and fights the militarization of the Southern Border region, discrimination, and human rights abuses by federal, state, and local law enforcement officials affecting U.S. and non-U.S. citizens alike.derechos humanos logo
Our goals include:
* Strengthening the capacity of the border & urban communities to exercise their rights and participate in public policy decisions.
* Increasing public awareness of the magnitude of human rights abuses, deaths and assaults at the border resulting from U.S. policy.
* Seeking changes in government policies that result in human suffering because of the militarization of the U.S. border region.
Who or what is it? Samaritan Patrol ( a.k.a. Samaritans) are people of faith and conscience who are responding directly, practically and passionately to the crisis at the US/ Mexico border. We are a diverse group of volunteers that are united in our desire to relieve suffering among our brothers and sisters and to honor human dignity. Prompted by the mounting deaths among border crossers, we came together July 1, 2002, to provide emergency medical assistance, food and water to people crossing the Sonoran Desert.
Feel free to add to the list in the comments below and I will update the post.
LatinoPolítico.com 