El Paso is the U.S.-Mexico border in miniature: Once a permeable landscape, the Texas city is now separated from its sister to the south—Ciudad Juárez—by a harsh apparatus of walls and wire. Thousands of people travel between the two cities daily, splitting their lives between two nations, all while debates rage over who may cross the border and how.
When five young Catholics set out to help El Paso's most vulnerable residents in the late 1970s, these questions weren't their primary concerns. "They were reading the Bible and saying, 'Where do we encounter God in this world? If we take our faith seriously, what kind of actions does that call us to?'" says Mary Fontana, a member of the board of directors (and longtime volunteer) at Annunciation House, a nonprofit that shelters and aids migrants.
