Quixote Center recognizes migration as a fundamental human right under international law. In the United States, migrants strengthen our economy, enrich our culture, and strengthen our social fabric.
Quixote Center’s principal international partnership is with the Red Franciscana para Migrantes (RFM - Franciscan Network for Migrants). RFM connects Franciscan-run shelters and other humanitarian assistance programs for migrants who are making the dangerous trek through Mexico, Central America, and South America. We support RFM by
Quixote Center and RFM organize Solidarity Trips since 2022 as part of our advocacy and education mission, bringing U.S. based migrant justice activists and other professionals to Southern Mexico and Panama to see firsthand how the U.S. immigration impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homelands to seek a new life, in the United States or elsewhere.
View our Between Borders video series HERE.
Find out more about our Solidarity Travel Program HERE.
Read the Red Clamor statement February 2025 in English HERE y en Español AQUI.
Read the Red Clamor Panama statement February 2025 HERE y en Español AQUI.
Read January 21st, 2025 Joint Statement with our partners at the Franciscan Network on Migration here
Read November 22nd, 2024 statement from the https://redfranciscana.org/en/Franciscan Network on Migration's National Assembly in Mexico here.
Participants from our March 2025 trip to Panama hosted a webinar titled Stranded and Forgotten. You can listen to it HERE.
Participants from the March 2024 trip wrote the report: Danger in the Darién Gap: Human RIghts Abuses and the Need for Human Pathways to Safety to denounce US efforts to further externalize US border to Panama.
Imagine being so desperate that you stop eating.
That after everything, after the journey, the crossing, the detention, the waiting, and the violence, you look down at your tray of food crawling with maggots and think: No. Not anymore.
Fifty years ago Bill Callahan and Dolly Pomerleau founded Quixote Center with a dream to be a progressive faith-based center for challenging injustice. Our founders were influenced by liberation theology and animated by a commitment to solidarity with the vulnerable and
marginalized, within the Catholic Church and in society. They dreamed the “impossible
dream” of a world more justly loving, armed with the faith that their love and persistence
could make impossible dreams come true.
After visiting shelters and meal programs across Mexico, Guatemala, and Panama, one truth keeps surfacing: compassion doesn’t wait for permission, it acts.
In border communities, the scene repeats itself day after day. Families arrive weary from the journey, hungry, dehydrated, and carrying everything they own.
Jose left Venezuela to save his livelihood and search for a more hopeful future.
A family farm that once sustained them no longer can, as the country's political and economic crises are making it harder to survive.
He crossed South and Central America, making his way north to seek asylum in San Diego. Now, he is in Panama, stranded between borders, with no clear way forward and no safe passage out.
by Claudette David, Quixote Center Board Member
On April 16, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1689 to extend protected status for Haitians and it did not happen quietly.
It started with a discharge petition, H. Res. 965, led by Representative Ayanna Pressley (MA-7). What followed was a succession of floor votes that included officially discharging the petition and a bill passage back to back. That alone is rare. That kind of moment does not come often.
Erick first left Guatemala as a teenager in 2004, after being threatened by gangs and fearing for his future. He made the journey to the United States to stay with his siblings and try to build a life.
His journey was not easy. He has been kidnapped, robbed, and mistreated. He has been deported several times, but cannot safely remain in his home country.
Today, he is staying at La 72 Hogar-Refugio para Personas Migrantes (one of our partners in Tenosique, Tabasco, Mexico)
Quixote Center traveled to Panama from March 22-26 to meet with our partners at the Red Franciscana para Migrantes (Franciscan Network for Migrants or RFM in Spanish) and assess the current situation in the country. Panama continues to be a major transit hub for people seeking a better life or to reunite their family.
In part one, Melona shared how she fled Eritrea, sought asylum in the United States, but was deported to Panama instead. A country that she has no ties to and does not speak the language.
This did not happen in isolation. The US government is sending people on deportation flights to Panama (and soon to Costa Rica) under a formal agreement. Melona was forced on one of those flights.
Headlines move so fast. We hear about migration all the time. Shocking stories of ICE patrols, border crossings, asylum claims, and deportations. We rarely hear about what happens to the real people along the way. Names are lost in the numbers, people disappear under the policies.
For many, the journey doesn't begin or end at a border. It stretches across years, across countries, and across systems. People are surviving in the in-between space, unable to return to the countries they fled and unable to move forward.
In the midst of one of the most complex migration crises in the region, the Franciscan Network for Migrants (RFM) in Panama continues to be a beacon of hope for thousands of people in human mobility. On the verge of completing three years of service, 2025 has been a year of consolidation, growth, and deep commitment to human dignity, especially for those who are most vulnerable: sick or injured migrants, returnees, asylum seekers, and families who cannot return to their countries of origin due to political, economic, or social crises.
The CLAMOR Network (Red Clamor in Spanish) is the Latin American and Caribbean Ecclesial Network for Migration, Displacement, Refuge and Human Trafficking who work in partnership with the Franciscan Network for Migrants and the Quixote Center. Below is the statement they published in the aftermath of the January 3rd attacks in Venezuela:
Time is running out for the 350,000 Haitians living in the US under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Even though violent gangs control 90% of Haiti’s capital and large parts of the central region, the Department of Homeland Security announced on the eve of Thanksgiving the termination of TPS status for Haitians, effective February 3rd, 2026.
