Border immersion trips are educational experiences. They are designed to prepare participants to return home and take action by raising awareness about immigration and its root causes, as well as engaging in advocacy for justice based immigration reforms.
The Mercy Justice Team is hosting two border immersion experiences in 2024:
April 21-26, 2024, El Paso, Texas, United States/Juárez, CI, Mexico, hosted by the Columban Mission Center. Click here for more details.
November 3-8, 2024, Rio Grande Valley, South Texas (McAllen), hosted by ARISE and its Mercy associates. Click here for more details.
To apply for either immersion delegation, please click here. Contact the Mercy Justice Team with any questions at justice@sistersofmercy.org.
Watch the video to learn more about Mercy border immersion trips.
Three recent border immersion participants share their experiences:
Three recent border immersion participants share their experiences:
I am living proof that the journey and challenges immigrant parents face can well be worth it for them and their future families. It brings me great sadness to see what immigrants face when I remember and reflect that my parents were once also facing the same challenges: not knowing the language, not knowing the process of how to apply for a visa properly, not knowing how to enter the country properly, not knowing their rights or having anyone to help.
By Elnora Bassey, Policy Advocate, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) — In early May 2022, I arose from my cozy bed hours before sunrise to catch an early flight to the U.S.-Mexico border. An advocate attorney with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), which works to protect immigrant and humanitarian rights, I was participating in a week-long border immersion experience to El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to learn more about immigration issues facing migrants during and after their journey to the U.S.-Mexico border. The program was sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy and hosted by the Columban Mission Center.
By Joanne Castner, Mercy Associate — On May 8, 2022, 13 of us from across the United States gathered in the living room of the Columban Mission House in El Paso, Texas, the beginning of an immersion trip to meet with people who find ways to organize their communities and improve living conditions for those in need, and to discover why so many people from other countries are seeking to cross our nation's borders.
Sister Betty Campbell, 87, in her backyard shrine at Casa Tabor, her Juárez home where she has lived for over 25 years. On the shrine’s walls, she and visitors write the names of people who have died violently along the border, as well as names of thousands of Mexican women who have disappeared.
View a border immersion photo essay from staff person Cathy Walsh
I am living proof that the journey and challenges immigrant parents face can well be worth it for them and their future families. It brings me great sadness to see what immigrants face when I remember and reflect that my parents were once also facing the same challenges: not knowing the language, not knowing the process of how to apply for a visa properly, not knowing how to enter the country properly, not knowing their rights or having anyone to help.
View last year’s grand prize winning video (*note: the contest format has changed for 2023)
The Mercy Justice Team needs you, a Mercy student, to create a short, social media style PSA (public service announcement) video – think Reels or TikTok – that reflects the Sisters of Mercy’s Critical Concerns. Put those creative ideas and video skills to work and you could win $500!
What form of injustice makes your nostrils flare every time it’s mentioned in the news?
Who do you know who’s been impacted by gun violence?
What story is yours to tell about the need for Mercy?
How do we challenge injustices in our society?
To receive information, updates and reminders about this year’s contest, complete this form and we’ll be in touch. Click here to learn rules for entry and how to upload your video.
View the grand prize winning video from 2021 (*note: the contest format has changed for 2023)
Purpose
For this year’s contest we are seeking short, PSA style videos (30 to 90 seconds) that are suitable for sharing on social media platforms such as TikTok or Reels. Video entries must focus on one of these topics:
Gun Violence
Videos should reflect the Mercy Critical Concerns, especially the Critical Concern for Nonviolence, but do not need to identify the Critical Concerns specifically.
Videos should inspire action to address gun violence.
Advocating for Justice
Videos should reflect the spirit of the Sisters of Mercy efforts to advocate on behalf of social justice issues.
Videos should inspire further advocacy.
Videos should seek to make the idea of advocating for justice more accessible to people of all ages by explaining why is it important or showing what it looks like.
NEW! Watch our 20 minute webinar
to learn more about this year’s contest.
Who Can Enter
Any student or group of students, high school age or older, enrolled in Mercy high schools, colleges/universities, or involved in a Mercy-affiliated ministry.
Use this tip-sheet to help you as you begin the process of creating your video.
1. Title. Each video must have a title. The title must be indicated on the submission form. The title does not need to be included in the video itself.
2. Credits. Credits must include the name of those involved in the creation of the video. The credits must also include citations for any images, audio, or text used in the video that is not original. The credits do not need to be included in the video itself, but must be included in the submission form.
The Sisters of Mercy may delete title and credit screens before posting videos on social media.
Entrants are strongly encouraged to use original footage and graphics as much as possible.
Important Note on Rules: In order to honor copyright protections, rules regarding use of images and music were updated for the 2022 contest and remain in effect for 2023. See the complete rules for details.
Deadline
All entries must be received by April 1, 2023.
Prizes
A panel of judges will use these criteria to select the winning video. Individual winners will receive financial awards. The Grand Prize Winner receives $500.
Winning entries may be featured on the Sisters of Mercy Institute web site and social media channels. Winners and their winning institution will be formally announced.
Interested?
If you think you might be interested in entering this contest, fill out this form to receive contest information and updates.
By Sister Luz-Eugenia Alvarez — From the time I began formation in the novitiate (a phase in the process of becoming a Sister of Mercy), I knew that, following the completion of classes on the vow of service, there was the possibility I would go to the U.S.-Mexico border. This past June, I did. I traveled to the border between McAllen, Texas, and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, to learn about how the sisters serve immigrants there.
By Kari Sims, Director of Service-Learning & Leadership, Mercy Academy, Louisville, Kentucky — I celebrated the 4th of July at a Major League baseball game this year. Before the unfurling of the giant American flag on the field, the announcer asked us all to pause for a moment of silence to honor the victims of the Highland Park shooting that had occurred earlier that morning. A solemn mood washed over the crowd. As we stood in silence, I wondered how many of us thought of the 53 people who died in the truck just outside of San Antonio, Texas—all in search of something better, in search of a home. After spending time at the border this past May, I cannot stop thinking about what it means to call someplace home.
By Sister Michele Schroeck — When I think of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint from the territory of the United States and Canada and patroness of ecology, I think of the Bhutanese immigrants living in my neighborhood. They were expelled from their native lands and sent to Nepal, where they lived in refugee camps in the 1990s before coming to the United States. These Bhutanese like many other native peoples were forced to leave their ancestral home.
More than 50 sisters, associates and colleagues in ministry joined the Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington, D.C., on Saturday, June 18, 2022. Sister Carren Herring and Sister Diane Guerin recently reflected on what it was like to be a part of this momentous event!
By Elnora Bassey, Policy Advocate, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) — In early May 2022, I arose from my cozy bed hours before sunrise to catch an early flight to the U.S.-Mexico border. An advocate attorney with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), which works to protect immigrant and humanitarian rights, I was participating in a week-long border immersion experience to El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to learn more about immigration issues facing migrants during and after their journey to the U.S.-Mexico border. The program was sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy and hosted by the Columban Mission Center.
By Catherine Walsh, Features Writer
— The joy I found on the U.S.-Mexico border in May surprised me. I heard horrific stories of people fleeing violence and poverty in Central America, Haiti and Ukraine, but I also saw countless kindnesses by migrants and those who help them while I was in El Paso, Texas, and Juárez, Mexico, with the Sisters of Mercy to learn why people are coming to the border in ever higher numbers. I heard people say that the Southern Border is the new Ellis Island.
Following are photos capturing our time at the border.
