Donate
Stories That Reflect Our Shared Humanity
Step into real experiences from the borderlands—voices of resilience, connection, and hope that challenge assumptions and invite deeper understanding.
Explainer: What Migrant Farmworkers Face in 2025
Source: California Legislators Say New Laws Must Protect Farmworkers From Extreme Heat Background: Since the early history of the United States, migrant farmworkers have been crucial to the country’s history and economy. However, they have often remained in the shadows of society, forced to endure inadequate and unacceptable living and working conditions. Take the Bracero…
All that Easy, All that Hard: Cristhel’s Story
This photo is shared with permission by the author (left) who came to a Border Encounter in March of this year. The picture shows her family in 2016 in their home in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. Sometimes, a single, tangible, undeniable experience plants a seed of doubt within us. And that’s when everything begins to change. For…
Explainer: The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA)
Background: In the 1970’s there was an increase of refugees coming in from Central America. This was due to civil and political unrest in countries that have experienced civil war, such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. It is important to understand that these events happened amid the Cold War, with the U.S. financing these…
Joy in the Ashes
In the Spring of 2023, Abara was offering support to a temporary camp of mostly Venezuelans in an abandoned building in Ciudad Juárez. The following story is about that time. A few weeks after a horrifying fire claimed the lives of 40 people in a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez, our team and volunteers…
There is so much fear. You can respond in love.
Does your heart feel heavy, too? The weight of what’s happening—at the border and beyond—has been pressing on us. We carry it with us daily. I’m sure you do too. You’ve seen the news. Raids. Detentions. Families torn apart. There’s so much fear in the air. So much noise. So much pain. In Ciudad Juárez,…
The Borderlands, Restored!
There are summer days in El Paso when it gets so hot that the sky crumbles into rain. It seems to come out of nowhere. That day, the sky was getting cloudy, then darker, as we drove the 15 minutes out to Sunland. On the Juárez side, they beat us to the spot. We arrived…
Spotlight on Monica Bharadwaj: Aspen Ideas Festival Fellow
We’re thrilled to celebrate our very own Monica Bharadwaj, who was recently featured as an Aspen Ideas Festival Fellow! In this spotlight, Monica shares her journey, the passion that drives her work, and her vision for creating meaningful change. As part of the Aspen Ideas Festival, Monica joins an inspiring community of change-makers from around…
The Story of Annunciation House
At Abara, we dream of a world without “others,” where fear gives way to connection, and every person’s humanity is fully honored. This year and last year you might have heard about the litigation between Texas and Annunciation House. First, let’s back track. Throughout the year 2024, the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, used his office at least…
8 de Marzo: International Women’s Day in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
The following reflection was written by Victoria de Anda, Abara’s Administrative and Research Assistant, about the annual march in Ciudad Juárez and around the world in honor of International Women’s Day. Solidarity with the unspeakable experiences of women in Juarez cannot be separated from our pursuit of justice and peace in the borderlands. Friends! My…
5 questions we’ve been asked in 2025
1.) How is Abara’s team doing? Living personal and vocational life on the border is complicated sometimes, but in a deeper way, it’s simple. We love this community. We love our neighbors, we love our city, and we’re choosing resilient hope. As we often say, “the border is joy”—a place where sorrow and struggle exist alongside…
“The border is an open wound…”
Hi friends, my name is Victoria, or “Toya”! I recently joined the Abara staff and I am enjoying every second of it. I would like to share with you some of my history and why it makes sense for me to be at Abara. Gloria Anzaldua once wrote “La Frontera es una herida abierta.” (The border…
Hospitality for the Holy Family on Christmas Eve A Letter from Maria Varela, Holy Family Refugee Center
Merry Christmas Eve, Abara Community! Today you will hear from Maria Varela, a dear friend of ours and one of the lead volunteers at Holy Family Refugee Center. Holy Family is one of Abara’s 20+ partner shelters in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. Maria’s words speak volumes. Kelly Latimore painted the image below the day…
Border Stories Sign Up!
Step into stories that humanize migration—hear voices from the borderlands that inspire understanding, connection, and action.
