Crossing with the Virgin: Stories from the Migrant Trail

Story Thirty-four

Story Thirty-four B enjamin Hill is the name not of a Spanish-speaking migrant but of a simple little pueblo ninety miles south of the ArizonaMexico border. It is a place where trains and migrants rendezvous . Here in this community, with only a few paved streets, no stoplight , and three churches, freight trains from southern Mexico arrive full of cargo inside and migrants on top. In this village they change to trains headed west to Mexicali or north to Nogales, two border towns, one on the California-Mexico border and one on the Arizona-Mexico border. The migrants arrive in large clusters, stuck to the tops, the sides, even underneath boxcars. When they reach the village of Benjamin Hill, they camp in the large fields beside the railroad tracks, awaiting freight trains headed for the border. At one of the two Catholic churches in town, the migrants can have a substantial meal before the trains leave at 10:30 a.m. Doña Alicia is the jefa in charge of the breakfast program. On busy days she and some of her fellow parishioners feed 120 migrants or more, mostly men. Alicia began this mission after she had a dream, “a vision.” Jesus Christ appeared to her and told her to feed the poor, to help the migrants passing through town, changing trains, heading north for jobs. Moved and inspired by her vision, she gathered the women in the church and community and started the breakfast program. Several blocks from the church, the main street turns and crosses the railroad tracks to another neighborhood. Just beyond the turn, on the other side of the gully, is a large field with a few trees. Scattered figures in dark clothes can be seen leaning against the trees. This field will be bed for the migrants tonight. There are several trains along the tracks, all of them still right now. On the other side of the railroad are neat houses with flowers and a few trees in the yards. Here is the other church, in the midst of the nicer homes. There is a school and 178 stories from the migrant trail playground right next to the lovely, white sanctuary. Padre Quiñones ’s living quarters are here. There is a large kitchen, well supplied, that serves lunches to schoolchildren and the less fortunate citizens of Benjamin Hill. Several times Padre Quiñones has invited us into the modest entry room of his living quarters. On the wall hangs a large portrait of Pope John Paul II. I always remember Padre Quiñones as a tall, large, bearlike man. But he is tall not in stature but in spirit. On one occasion, Tucson clergyman John Fife went with another Samaritan and me down to Benjamin Hill to take provisions to Señora Alicia for the breakfast program, and we met Padre Quiñones for lunch. When I saw the two great men of God and of the people embrace, laugh, and toss false accusations and jokes at each other, I knew their spirits filled a void in this world. During the Sanctuary movement of the 1980s, Padre Quiñones was one of two Mexican nationals indicted by the U.S. government as a conspirator to transport illegal immigrants from Central America . Because he was Mexican, he had no responsibility to appear in the U.S. court, but every day for six months he drove the ninety kilometers from Nogales to Tucson to appear in court alongside the other ten defendants. At that time, over twenty years ago, he was a priest in that city on the Mexican border. When tortured, threatened, and persecuted Central Americans came through Mexico, headed for the United States to request asylum, they sought temporary refuge in Nogales. Padre Quiñones had his parishioners leave their photo ID border passes at the church. When the Central Americans arrived in Nogales, they would sort through the photo IDs until one of similar appearance to the refugee was found. Then the asylum seeker crossed the border and was picked up by a Sanctuary worker and sent on the way to a safer locale. The ID was then sent back to Nogales, Sonora, to be used again when a match was appropriate or when the rightful owner of the ID needed to cross the border. Pastor John Fife and Padre Ramón Dagoberto Quiñones were truly soul brothers. They shared an unspoken closeness, forged in a battle that thrust them into...