Colorado nonprofit honors the memory of immigrants who died trying to cross the border in 2020
DENVER — The Denver-based nonprofit Casa de Paz is an organization that offers shelter, food, and other support services to people after they have been released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers.
Sarah Jackson is the executive director of the nonprofit. She started Casa de Paz eight years ago as a way to help people who had been detained at the ICE facility in Aurora.
With a virtual ceremony on December 21, Jackson and Casa de Paz are honoring the memory of immigrants who have died in 2020 near the U.S.-Mexico border in their journey to the United States.
“More than 181 people have perished this year and the numbers continue to rise. This will be a time to honor their memories,” the event page reads.
The ceremony is called The Longest Night of the Year because it takes place on the winter solstice, the day with the most darkness. “These are arduous journeys people are taking, and oftentimes when the day runs out of light, immigrants crossing the border are left in the pitch black of night,” Jackson explained.
Jackson said the winter solstice is also a popular time for people to honor the lives of those experiencing homelessness who have passed away without shelter.
“When immigrants cross the border, they are also experiencing homelessness," Jackson explained. "And so I thought, ‘Well why don’t we do a memorial service here in Denver?’ Even though we’re far from the border, immigration and immigrant detention is not something that’s just happening on the border. It’s also affecting the lives of people here in Colorado, here in Denver, [and] across the country.”
Jackson continued: “We don’t know anything about them. We don’t know why they came to the United States—what their hopes were; what their dreams were; what their goals were. Their bodies were so decomposed by the time someone found them that they were unidentifiable. But we will remember them as an ‘unknown person.’ I believe that’s just reprehensible. That somebody could die on our borderlands for a lack of water, for a lack of food, for a lack of protection from the environment.”
In her research, Jackson learned that the people recovering the bodies along the border— groups like Aguiles del Desierto— believe the reported number of people who die crossing the border is “grossly misrepresented.”
“They say that for every one body that they find, that there are a least five more bodies that are never going to be found,” she said.
The ceremony will be remote this year, and participants will gather in their own homes. Jackson said people are participating across the country because of the fact that it’s a remote gathering.
“We are hopeful that people from all over the world will join with us and have this be an opportunity to learn about what’s happening at the border and the reality that many people are losing their lives,” she said. “And this is a small and significant way that we can remember them.”
More information on Casa de Paz and their event is available here.
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