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.
In December, the Quixote Center delivered funding to one of our partners in the Franciscan Network on Migration for a project called “Psychosocial Intervention in Shelters: A Response to Eta and Iota.”
One June 24, 2021 the Advisory Committee of Franciscan Network on Migration collaborated with Franciscans International and together with 30 other organizations (including the Quixote Center) to make a joint Declaration on the harsh reality faced by migrants in Mexico, Guatemala and the United States. The statement as delivered by Ana Victoria López Estrada is below in English and Spanish.
As a candidate Biden promised, and seemed poised early on, to chart a new path toward a more people-centered reform agenda. As president he has taken many hopeful steps, but still leans on deterrence and criminalization to a degree that is concerning.
On June 12, 2021, Fray Juan Antonio Orozco Alvarado, O.F.M., a Franciscan friar, headed to church to celebrate Mass in Tepehuana de Pajaritos, Durango, Mexico and was caught in crossfire between two rival gangs and died, along with several other unnamed persons. As part of our work with the Franciscan Network on Migration, we are sharing the statement put out by the advocacy team on this killing. The Statement is available in both English and Spanish below.
Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that people who currently have Temporary Protected Status, but who entered the United States without having been “inspected,” are not eligible to become permanent residents.
One of the goals you have been working on with us and a host of other organizations was finally achieved this weekend. The news was first announced on Buzzfeed News:
Throughout the last year, the number of people being held in immigration detention facilities fell. Starting at about 38,000 last March, the number of people being held in detention at the end of February this year was just below 13,000. As we reported throughout the year, the decline was the result of border policies, specifically Title 42 - a controversial public health order under which people are denied access to regular immigration processing, including the right to request asylum.
Back in January of 2018, Donald Trump was being briefed by Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) about a compromise proposal to cut the visa lottery system, while reallocating the difference to underrepresented countries in Africa and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, such as Haiti.
This week, 69 members of congress sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking for a review of U.S. policy toward Haiti. From the Miami Herald,
