Tapachula, Mexico, November 19, 2018 – Starting from the indications of the XV General Chapter of the Congregation of the Missionaries of San Carlos, Scalabrinians, which highlighted the radical change in migration, including its causes, routes and consequences, the new Superior General, Fr. Leonir Chiarello, together with the Provincial Superior of the Province of San Juan Bautista, Fr. Miguel Alvarez, summoned all the directors of the Casas del Migrante of Mexico and Central America for a high-level meeting with representatives of UNHCR and IOM, reminding us of our Founder’s axiom: “to new phenomena new organisms.”

The meeting assumed the strategic and priority character for the short and medium term future for the Congregation and its position in front of the great noise of the media for the caravans reason: to be there where migration suffers, when is abandoned, when is exploited and sometimes it leaves a cross on the road.

We were in discernment, listening, dialogue and proactive attitude in face of the challenges posed by the mass exit of people from Central America to the North and we reached some conclusions:

1- The peripheries hit every day by poverty, unemployment, violence, extortion and shameless corruption of certain governments in conspiracy with private sectors have been launched.

2 – This massive exodus is characterized by a cry suffused by the silence of those who no longer have anything because they lost or were robbed of their own dignity by a failed state, dominated in its territory by transnational organized crime.

• Given the above, we Missionaries of Scalabrini, SIMN (Scalabrini International Migration Network) and the Casas del Migrante Network, we want to remember the 25 years of presence and outstretched hand to this hemorrhage of children, women, teenagers and elderly who turned us Samaritans of this long exodus path, where we received 456,800 migrants.
• Facing the challenge of the caravan drama, we are aware that we were only a patch next to other people of good will, but also an open heart in the face of the wounds of Central America, which do not stop bleeding.
• We continue to make a bridge with international organizations to be the voice of the excluded and plan actions together with civil society organizations to welcome, protect, promote and integrate those that the “societas” discard and whose hope has not yet turned to ash.

In dynamic fidelity and attentive to the new signs of our time, we commit ourselves to be partners along the way with those who seek an alternative of life and dignity.

The presence of the Superior General and of the Provincial Superior with United Nations organizations is for us a gesture of solidarity and of that silent prophecy that is the same of our people.