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. We are a nation built by migrants for migrants.
The Quixote Center’s principal international partnership is with the Franciscan Network for Migrants (FNM). FNM 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 serve as the fiscal sponsor for the FNM within the United States, and coordinate advocacy efforts with their staff. We provide on-going financial support to FNM programs in Panama, a particularly strategic and dangerous migrant crossing point. We offer capacity-strengthening funding to FNM teams, so far supporting teams in Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico.
Quixote Center and FNM organize Solidarity Trips approximately every six months 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. border policies impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homelands to seek a new life, in the United States or elsewhere.
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 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.
“Apparently nobody wants to know that contemporary history has created a new kind of human beings – the kind that are put in concentration camps by their foes and in internment camps by their friends.” – Hannah Arendt (1)
More than half of the people in Haiti are facing severe hunger, with at least 8,000, specifically among those displaced and living in tent camps, facing starvation. Gang violence killed 5600 people in 2024, with more than one million people displaced. The violence, death, hunger and displacement are a result of weak U.S. gun laws and weak enforcement that enriches manufacturers and dealers and enables illegal gun trafficking across the Caribbean.
Quixote Center is set to embark on another Solidarity Trip to Panama (March 23-30) in partnership with the Franciscan Network for Migration (FNM).
The immigration system in the US is dysfunctional, with decades of failed attempts at comprehensive immigration reform. The reason: powerful interest groups are profiting from it. Although immigrants founded the United States, and our nation is supposed to be a land of opportunity for those seeking the “American Dream”, the US has a complex history of anti-immigrant sentiment with cycles that have pushed and pulled people from all parts of the world.
The news cycle has been spinning out of control since January 20. The shock and awe tactic intends to destabilize and demoralize the opposition. Here we focus on the barrage of Executive Orders (EO) signed by our new President that affect migrants in the United States and abroad. We assess the impact they are having and what we can do to better protect our friends and neighbors who fear being deported.
Stay strong. It will be a tough few years.
We reaffirm our commitment to support and promote the rights and dignity of people on the move, as well as migrants already seeking a new life in our country. We reaffirm the humanity and dignity of LGBTQ persons and offer our love. We stand behind Bishop Budde’s plea for compassion and mercy toward the most vulnerable.
There is so much fear mongering and scapegoating during this election year. Recently Quixote Center had to remove a social media post on migration because there was too much hate and anger toward migrants expressed in the comments. It is worthwhile to take a step back and reflect on where each of us stand on immigration. No matter what our background or personal connection to this sensitive issue is, we all have an opinion. But where does our knowledge come from? That is, how do you know what you know?
There is a lot of noise about migration coming from political campaigns, and from all sides. Most recently the U.S. government has limited asylum applications at the border in order to stem an ever-growing flow. Congress couldn’t pass bipartisan legislation to do essentially the same thing, because on the political right, politicians want to use the issue to rally their base.
During the week of March 11, Quixote Center, together with our partners with the Franciscan Network on Migration, organized and led a group of U.S.-based immigration advocates and policy experts to visit the migrant path in Panama, starting with the treacherous Darien Gap. Our Panama colleagues released a report in response to what we witnessed at the Darien.
Our colleagues note the following concerns:
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
-Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Article 13/14
