Quixote Center recognizes migration as a fundamental human right that also benefits the communities that receive them. Beyond their economic contribution, the integration of people from all over the world enriches the cultural diversity and strengthens the social fabric of the United States, a nation built by migrants for migrants.
The Quixote Center’s principal international partnership is with the Franciscan Network for Migrants (FNM). The Franciscan Network for Migrants is an effort to connect shelters run by Franciscan orders which provide humanitarian assistance to migrants who are traveling through Mexico, Central and South America. We serve as the fiscal sponsor for the Franciscan Network for Migrants within the United States, and coordinate advocacy efforts with their staff.
Quixote Center and FNM organize Solidarity Trips every six months since 2022 as part of our advocacy, bringing U.S. based migrant justice professionals to Southern Mexico and Panama to see firsthand how the U.S. border externalization policies impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people trying to seek refuge in the United States.
Find out more about our Solidarity Travel Program HERE.
As a result of our 2024 Solidarity Trip to Panama, we are currently working with the FNM Panama team on a Training of Trainers program to equip volunteers to provide spiritual accompaniment and observe that the human rights of migrants are respected in the Darien where FNM has established a permanent presence in the community of Bajo Chiquito.
Read March 11, 2025's Executive Decree from Panamanian President Jose Mulino en Español AQUI
Read the Red Clamor statement February 2025 in English HERE y en Español AQUI.
Read the Red Clamor Panama statement February 2025 HERE.
Read the Red Clamor Panama statement February 2025 in Spanish HERE.
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 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.
The Quixote Center launched the Migrant Justice program in 2018 to demand justice for migrants at the US border, within the United States and throughout their journey. We worked to end immigrant detention, and defended the right to asylum, which has been eroded over the last several years. We also partnered with organizations who work with migrants in the United States and in Latin America, organizing webinars and publishing reports.
Last year people held at at a private immigration detention facility in Aurora, Colorado filed suit against the owner, The GEO Group, claiming that the company required them to work in the facility “Volunteer Work Program” and threatened solitary confinement to those who refused.
Several articles in the past week have focused on the ways the Trump administration is employing fear tactics as means to punish migrants. To some degree deterrence has always been a part of U.S. policies aimed at limiting migration. Yet, the current administration seems intent on reaching a new level of cruelty that is both immoral—and illegal. By targeting asylum seekers, separating children and families, and using enforcement in a campaign to silence dissent among immigration activists, Trump’s team is reaching new lows.
Last week, visitors from the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) joined us at the Quixote Center for a conversation on migrant detention and the prison-industrial complex. We discussed the brutality of ICE, the injustice of Operation Streamline, and the expansion of private prisons. But there was one topic we kept coming back to: the cycle of criminalization.
U.S. immigration enforcement practices violate internationally recognized human rights. They have for years. However, under the Trump administration the scale of violations has grown, with increases in mass arrests that ignore asylum claims, expansion of detention under conditions that are inhumane, and a recent spike in the use of family separation as a tactic to further punish migrants. These practices dehumanize migrants. And in combination, might well constitute torture.
Temporary Protected Status holders increasingly fear they will not be permitted to remain in the United States. Within the last year the Trump administration has terminated TPS for four out of the 10 designated countries. This week TPS for El Salvador was terminated, impacting over 260,000 people who have lived in the U.S. for over 17 years. TPS holders and supporters continue to press for a permanent, legislative solution. In support of this effort we continue our series on TPS; this week with a profile of Nepal.
In November, I traveled to the School of the Americas’ (SOA) Encuentro Watch to learn more about immigration and the demilitarization of the US-Mexico border. Upon arrival, I was picked up from the Tucson airport and driven to US District Court Pro SE Office in Tucson, Arizona. This courthouse is noteworthy, because it is one of the three courts in the country that utilizes Operation Streamline.
Part III of a series on TPS
Missed the last blog?
President Trump was elected in part due to his hardline stance on immigration, such as promising the creation of a border wall and a crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration. Given this context, the Trump Administration's proposal to end TPS is unsurprising.
This installment of the TPS series serves to layout the chief arguments for and against the TPS program.
Part I of a series on TPS
In mid-September President Trump’s Administration announced that they are considering ending TPS, and deporting all individuals living in the United States currently protected by TPS. The purpose of this series is to inform the public on this issue.
What is Temporary Protected Status?
On September 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution, a document that became the key founding text of the United States of America. The “Blessings of Liberty” described in the preamble, however, were not truly intended for all people in that newborn nation.
