Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life

I was recently privileged to participate in Georgetown University’s Alternative Breaks Program’s Magis Kino Border Immersion trip, a remarkable experience which profoundly deepened my understanding of immigration and our southern border. This trip could not have occurred without the support and partnership provided to us by Kino Border Initiative (KBI), an invaluable program serving migrants and refugees at the border, whose staff members constantly reminded us our mission there was threefold: Humanize, Accompany, Complicate (HAC for short). While humanizing and accompaniment was emotionally challenging at times due to my relative powerlessness in many of the situations we experienced, I was most challenged to complicate my understanding of immigration and the debates around our southern border.

In the shadow of the recent 35-day government shutdown over the building of a southern border wall, members of the Georgetown community gathered for an event hosted by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. The discussion featured a religious woman, a moral theologian, a lawyer, an Evangelical leader, and an undocumented Georgetown student, and focused on the human and moral cost of immigration and border security.