Solidarity Also Blossoms on the USA–Mexico Border
HAVANA TIMES – The border is a line that seems infinite, bristling with steel bars rising from the desert floor into a wall meant to stop migrants trying to cross from Mexico into the United States—but it cannot stop the initiatives of solidarity that also travel along that line.
“We want the border to be a place of encounter, opportunity, and hope, instead of a place for division and militarization,” Presbyterian pastor Mark Adams told IPS. He leads the Frontera de Cristo initiative, based between the northern Sonoran city of Agua Prieta and Douglas, in the US state of Arizona.
Founded in 1984 as a ministry of devotion and social work in the area, Frontera de Cristo now encompasses a variety of initiatives in spirituality, solidarity, and cooperation, including years of work supporting hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrive to cross the border or are sent back after doing so.
At the beginning, the work focused on accompanying and assisting communities in need of basic services. In the following decade, it turned to helping Mexican families pushed to work in the maquiladoras that flourished after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect between the two countries and Canada in 1994.
During the first US presidency of Donald Trump (2017–2021), the administration imposed a renegotiation of that agreement, which since 2020 has been known as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). The maquiladora industry has continued to thrive under the new treaty.
Gradually, the Frontera de Cristo ministry joined and worked with people of different faiths and civil society organizations in this landscape of mountains, valleys, and desert, where the 100,000 residents of Agua Prieta and the 16,000 of Douglas meet and watch one another through the bars.
To the residents who contribute their efforts locally are added volunteers—mostly from North America—who visit for a few days or longer stays to take part in religious and community work activities.
Across the six Mexican and four US states along the border, there are numerous groups devoted to solidarity and coexistence. On August 16, an event called “Friends Across the Border” showcased these efforts, featuring cultural and recreational activities in parks and plazas organized by at least 44 organizations.
It Begins with a Prayer
For the past 25 years, one of Frontera de Cristo’s first and most emblematic activities has been to hold an ecumenical prayer at the border, walking along the wall while remembering those who have died trying to cross.
According to the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), since 1998 at least 10,000 people have died attempting the crossing.
“A second task is education,” said Adams, who is from South Carolina. “We direct this work toward churches and universities, so that people can learn about border realities—be informed and educated by community members here about their lives, economies, relationships, and what migration means.”
Part of that education comes simply from contemplating the border wall itself, whose bars rise as high as nine meters along 1,123 kilometers of the 3,169-kilometer boundary—most of it cutting through desert and following the Rio Grande which empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
Then there is the humanitarian work, born from an incident early in the century when, during a winter celebration, so many guests failed to show up that the hosts decided to take the food and share it with recently deported migrants who were cold and hungry, almost out in the open.
From that gesture came the idea of creating a Migrant Resource Center, which since 2006 has assisted the most destitute arrivals by offering water, food, coffee, first aid, access to showers, a change of clothes, and a place to rest before continuing their journey.
There is also a Migrant Shelter called Éxodo, which can house and feed up to 100 people a day—mostly deportees from the US—as they decide what to do next.
In the communities of Agua Prieta, the organization also runs a center helping people with drug or alcohol addictions, another that provides educational support and after-school activities, and a third that promotes small-scale economic initiatives such as food production, gardening, and aquaculture.
A Turn Toward Cooperativism
On the economic front, Frontera de Cristo has addressed migration by promoting a coffee cooperative—located some 3,000 kilometers south by road, near Tapachula in the state of Chiapas, close to the Guatemalan border.
That lush, green area—so different from the arid desert of Sonora—is both a gateway for migration from Central America and a source of Mexican migrants leaving behind their families, lands, and crops.
“One goal was to reduce the forced migration caused by the living conditions of coffee-growing families in that region. Many men left their farms and families to migrate, seeking better income and trying to eliminate middlemen,” Carmina Sanchez, administrator of Café Justo in Agua Prieta, told IPS.
A native of Chiapas who migrated north at 16 and now has college-aged children, Sanchez says she is “grateful to Agua Prieta; I fell in love with this desert and with the Café Justo project, which shows there are alternatives for people who migrate from the south.”
In the Tapachula area, 65 families of small coffee growers cultivate, harvest, pulp, and dry the organic beans before sending them to Agua Prieta, where they are roasted, ground, packaged, and exported—mainly to clients, especially churches, in the United States.
“We ship about 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilos) at market-level prices—between nine and twelve dollars per pound—while still earning enough margin to pay farmers better than commercial intermediaries,” Sanchez explained.
The coffee is also sold retail on the Agua Prieta–Douglas border, through online purchases and at a local café that doubles as a cultural space and gathering place for those taking part in Frontera de Cristo’s walks, visits, or religious meetings.
And Finally, Politics
The fifth area of work is political advocacy. “We focus on US immigration policy, which has negatively impacted the border, because we want people to understand that we are friends across a border that should be a space of hope,” Adams said.
The US–Mexico border has 56 official points of entry, including 20 land crossings and 36 bridges, along with constantly shifting illegal access routes under heavy surveillance by US border patrols.
According to CBP data, 1.7 million people crossed the southwest border in the 2021 fiscal year (October–September), 2.4 million in 2023, and 2.1 million in 2024.
Between February and July 2025, CBP reported between 5,000 and 13,000 encounters per month on that frontier—a drop of 92–95% compared to 2024 figures.
The clearest reason lies in the wave of restrictive measures implemented by Donald Trump upon taking office for his second term on January 20, aimed at limiting the entry of migrants and asylum seekers and increasing detention and deportation of undocumented individuals.
One of his first measures during his earlier presidency was to order the construction of a wall along the roughly 3,200-kilometer border. A total of 733 kilometers were built before his successor, Joe Biden, halted construction. Upon returning to the White House, Trump ordered it completed—and painted black.
“We always suffer from changes in immigration policy,” Adams noted. “We shouldn’t further militarize the border,” he added, referring to how the issue is framed in Washington as a matter of national security against “invaders.”
“What we need on the border is to increase people’s security and to change the narrative that this is a place of fear—something the government has succeeded in promoting,” he said.
Efforts are now underway to build understanding and coalition among organizations and initiatives practicing different forms of community relations and solidarity on both sides of the border, as was evident during the August event.
“What we need are changes that make the border a space of hope. It is home to millions of people who, on both sides and across it, are friends—not enemies,” Adams concluded.
First published in Spanish by IPS and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.