Prayer and Presence at the Border

BVMs Katie Anders and Marguerite Murphy are gathering with 10 other Sisters from across the country Jan. 24–31, 2026, to participate in an immersion experience at the border. The week is coordinated by Catholic Sisters Walking with Migrants and the Kino Border Initiative and aims to provide Catholic sisters a personal experience of the impact of current immigration policies from the Nogales U.S./Mexico border.

We ask for your prayers and look forward to sharing with you what they experience and learn through this journal.
(Check back as the week progresses for more reflections.)

DAY 1

Jan. 24: We arrived in Nogales, Arizona, in the late afternoon to begin a week of accompaniment and learning around the topic of immigration. We began with an orientation at the office of the Kino Border Initiative, which serves people in the U.S. and Mexico, then headed out for a walking tour of downtown Nogales. There are three ports of entry in Nogales, including the Morley crossing which is the only strictly pedestrian crossing along the southern border. Movement to and from is quite fluid as folks come and go for work, school, and commerce.

The goals of this week long immersion experience are to humanize, accompany, and complicate. We will learn firsthand how all sides of the immigration issue are about human beings with varying life experiences and perspectives including those in migration, people who have been detained, ranchers, border patrol, and lawmakers. We will spend time with and accompany families at the Kino shelter and through all this learn that our personal perspectives tend to simplify a very complicated issue.