Who We Serve

The Poorest of the Poor

From its beginnings, Annunciation House has sought to live out its purpose and identity with and among the poor. The commitment was to respond to some of the ‘poorest of the poor’, those who for one reason or another could not be assisted by existing welfare agencies. With Annunciation House being located a few blocks from the border between the United States and Mexico, it quickly became evident that in the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez community, the peoples from south of the border were the most vulnerable and least able to receive services and assistance from these existing agencies and programs.

These people who have variously been called “‘illegals, mojados, aliens” etc. are best identified by their undocumented immigration status and the poverty, injustice, and oppression which is so much a part of their reality. Over the years these have become the primary focus and constituency of Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Among these are to be found refugees from Mexico and Central America who came north to the border areas in search of food, employment, survival and some way to support families back home. One will also encounter political refugees who have fled countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

Guests at Annunciation House

With the continual arrival and presence of immigrants and refugees, the house has always offered hospitality and sanctuary to the undocumented. Through their willingness to welcome and offer hospitality to the undocumented, volunteers also give witness to the cry for justice that springs forth from their lands. It becomes important, therefore, for volunteers to have an understanding of this aspect of the work of the house and the commitment which it asks.

Because so much of the work of the house is with the undocumented, it is not unusual for volunteers and guests to have contact with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and Border Patrol. While there is no official relationship between Annunciation House and INS, contact and communication can be frequent. There have been times when INS has referred people to Annunciation House, explaining to them that the house provides shelter and food for those who have no resources or place to stay.

However, there have also been moments of frustration and tension with the INS. Annunciation House does not see the undocumented as ‘aliens’ or ‘illegals’. Instead, they are welcomed as Jesus in the distressing disguise of some of the ‘least among us’. It is painful and frustrating to see house guests picked up by INS, detained and deported. The guests quickly cease to be statistics of far away places and become living witnesses of a reality that deeply affects the volunteers. Most people have no idea of what life is like for the undocumented. There is no sense of why they have left their countries to come and live in the United States.

The undocumented are the heart and soul of the work of Annunciation House. It is a conscientious decision to see in them the Gospel call of treating the “least among us” as we would the Christ. Nobel Peace laureate and poet, Elie Wiesel, while addressing a group working with refugees said, “There is no such thing as an illegal human being!” If there be truth to that statement, if the Gospel be heard, then volunteers coming to Annunciation House must be willing to say to those who come to the door, “Bienvenidos, mi casa es su casa.”

Why they come

Their stories are stories of poverty, stories of malnutrition, and of hungry children, stories of cardboard houses, stories of no work, stories of bombed villages, stories of fear, stories of torture and death.

They come to us from Mexico, Central America, and countries beyond, fleeing death squads, drug cartels, illiteracy, and unemployment. They come to escape the violence of the wars that tear their limbs, their families, and their countries apart. They come to escape the institutionalized violence of globalization that manifests itself in crushing poverty, unemployment, and hunger. They come to escape the nationalized violence that comes from governments seeking to repress those working for literacy, better jobs, and better health care for their people. They come to escape the personal violence of abusive families, to escape the pain that comes from being unwanted, unloved, unwelcome- from being lonely. Each guest has a story, and each story is different. But all have been pushed into the stream of migration by the extreme circumstances of their lives. They find themselves under one roof for a singular moment in time. This is Annunciation House.

Along with them the guests also bring their stories of faith and hope. They desire to find work and security. They desire to be reunited with a father, mother, brother, sister or friend not seen for a year or maybe five. Or perhaps they know a friend of a friend who can help them find a way in this country.

Oftentimes their hope –the address of a relative or friend- is scribbled on a tiny piece of paper. If all goes well a phone call can lead to travel money through Western Union and a bus or plane ticket to Los Angeles or New York. Perhaps they stay at the House a few days until the money arrives.

Guests at Annunciation House

For most it is not so easy, it is not so fast. They find their lives on hold. To get here most have had to sell all that they had for travel money. For many that was not enough so they ended up begging food or not eating. Some arrive at the house having not eaten for a day or two or more. Some ended walking many miles, or hopping a train, or hitching a ride. Some believed the words of a ‘coyote’ who promised to bring them all the way to Los Angeles or New York without any problems. They find themselves abandoned in Mexico City, Ciudad Juarez, or a cheap hotel in El Paso, robbed of their money and identification, with little or no idea of how to continue their journey. Their hopes, their dramas, are dampened by more than the river they cross to arrive. Still they are people of faith. They have to be, to do what they do.

They arrive with no suitcases, only the clothes on their backs. They have no bank account, often no friends, no job, no social services available to them, no health insurance. They do not realize how many doors are closed to them. They hadn’t realized that they would be for the most part unwelcomed, unwanted. They live in fear: the fear of being caught by US immigration authorities, the fear of being detained in the ‘correlon’ (the INS detention center), the fear of deportation, the fear of failing their families.

In spite of all of this, our guests in many ways are the lucky ones: the ones with the where-with-all to make the journey to ‘El Norte’, the fabled land of opportunity. ‘Los mas pobres’ of Central America and Mexico seldom make it to our doorstep. They struggle to survive in the limbo of refugee camps or the slums of Mexico City. The people that come to the house are the keepers, the guardians of the human spirit that continues to struggle in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. They are the new chosen people of God. They bring their sufferings, their hopes, their gratitude. We must listen to them, we must learn from them.

They are prophets and as prophets they call us to open our hearts and our homes. They challenge us to a higher level of understanding and compassion. They call us to fully comprehend that we are all one, all united in the body of Christ. They ask us to be the innkeepers that say “Yes” to Maria and Jose when they knock in the night. They lead us to look critically at the gap between the rich and the poor and to reject the collective social sin of structural injustices. These barefoot men and anguished women, these hungry children, call us to conversion- to cross the road and offer a hand to the traveler in the ditch. And though they come from countries and streets where Christ continues to be crucified on a daily basis, these refugees, these homeless people also bring us the Good News of the resurrection. They show us that the last words are life not death, hope not despair.

Guests at Casa Peregrina

“Nothing is so important to the church as human life, as the human person, and above all, the person of the poor and oppressed, who, besides being human beings, are also divine beings, since Jesus said that whatever is done to them he takes as done to him. That bloodshed, those deaths, are beyond politics. They touch the very heart of God.”
–Archbishop Oscar Romero