Ciudad Juárez, Chih. The tenth annual "Hugs Not Walls" gathering yesterday brought together more than 100 migrant and Mexican-American families. They reunited and hugged for about six minutes after years of not seeing each other, on the banks of the Rio Grande where Texas ends and the city of Sunland Park, New Mexico, begins, on the border with Ciudad Juárez.
Previous events had been held along the Rio Grande between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Texas, but this year the event was held on the border in Sunland Park, due to the barbed wire that the Texas National Guard has placed along the river and the presence of groups of undocumented immigrants trying to request asylum at the gates of points 36 and 40 of the border fence.
"Hugs, Not Walls" began at 9 a.m., when migrants and their families were able to move around the Rio Grande, cross the border, and greet each other, while being monitored by authorities from both countries.
This meeting is organized annually by the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR), in collaboration with the Texas Immigration Reform Alliance, sponsored by the Ministry of Peace and Justice of the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, and, since 2022, with the participation of the Ciudad Juárez City Council.
Fernando García, director of BNHR, noted that “as border communities across Texas continue to be subjected to unprecedented militarization, demonization, and hatred, the Border Network will continue to provide a beacon of hope to millions of families who have been forcibly separated by our broken and inhumane immigration system.”
“It's an event that expresses a lot of love, but it's undoubtedly a protest. It's a call to attention to the immigration policy that destroys families, separates parents from children, and siblings. So, for us, it's important that it continues to happen even as the border continues to close and migrant families are increasingly criminalized.”
In its official statement, the Border Network for Human Rights stated that this ceremony "offers a long-awaited opportunity for children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles to see, touch, and embrace each other for a few precious minutes, many for the first time in years! (…) It is a reminder to our leaders that alternative, humane, and just solutions are just around the corner."