In 2022 we launched a solidarity travel program that brings advocates from the United States to visit with shelters and meal programs serving migrant populations in southern Mexico and in Panama. These trips take place every six months and allow migrant justice professionals to witness the migratory path, meet with human rights defenders and the people migrating north or being deported south because of US border externalization policies.
Our next Solidarity Travel to Panama is set for March 23-30, 2025.
Click HERE for more information.
Panama
The Quixote Center and the Franciscan Network on Migration's Panama team lead migrant solidarity trips throughout Panama, from the Darien jungle in the south, all the way to the northern border with Costa Rica. Participants experience community-based responses and welcoming, speak to migrants undertaking the journey, and examine how the United States is influencing the Panamanian government's response to the influx.
The group visits the Panamanian government's "reception centers" in the Darien, where migrants who survive the perilous journey must choose between paying $100 per person for a bus northward or trek miles through mountainous highways. The group also visits the country's only non-profit- run migrant shelter, serving medically vulnerable people.
Southern Mexico
The Quixote Center solidarity trips to Mexico's southern border connect people from the United States with partners at the migrant shelter La 72, one of the shelters of the Franciscan Network on Migration. Trip participants will meet people staying at the shelter, visit the border crossing with Guatemala at El Ceibo, and hear from advocates in Mexico and migrants themselves about the impact that U.S. policy has in southern Mexico. You'll hear the many stories of why people have made the decision to risk so much on their journey north. You will return to the United States with a fuller picture of the impact of U.S. policy, and a fire inside to change it.
The Quixote Center Solidarity Trip provided me a rich experience to listen to, learn from, and connect emotionally with those on their journey to find safety and security in a new country and galvanized my resolve to advocate even more ferociously for their human right to migrate. Tom Cartwright, Witness at the Border
Our job as immigration advocates is to meet the storytellers that ignite our passion for the work…To go to the frontlines and see the impacts of anti-immigrant policies and learn from the folks on the ground supporting asylum seekers on their journeys. Sofia Rosales-Zeledon, Grassroots Advocacy Associate with the American Immigration Lawyers Association
Reports from Past Trips
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.
REPORT from March 2024 trip to Panama
REPORT from 2024 trip to Mexico
Read reflections from past trip participants
Mexico is a Cemetery for Migrants
An Immigration Advocate on the Meaning of Solidarity
An Advocate's Reflection on the Quixote Center's Solidarity Trip
A Teacher's Reflections on the Quixote Center's Solidarity Trip