SICKLERVILLE – Her voice cracking, Teresa Garibay stood in Saint Charles Borromeo Church and described when she and her family knew they needed to leave their homeland of Mexico.
Her family’s farm and business in Michoacán couldn’t compete with national corporations taking over the country’s agricultural infrastructure, she explained, and the government squeezed their profits of crops such as strawberries and beans.
Desiring a life that would allow them to make their own path, the family – which included Teresa’s parents, siblings and 9-year-old son, made their way to South Jersey in 1989.
“Twenty-three years later, I received my green card. In 2019, I became a United States citizen,” she said.
Today, as executive director of Camden’s Romero Center Ministries and parishioner of the city’s Saint Joseph Pro-Cathedral, she continues to advocate on behalf of migrants and refugees who seek the promise of better days.
Garibay spoke to those gathered Sept. 20 for an event sponsored by the diocese’s Office of Life and Justice to mark National Migration Week (Sept. 18-24). The program was an opportunity for participants to understand the plight of migrants, pray and take action in their own communities.
“We need to meet and pay attention to immigrants, learn their stories and their needs, and help them,” Garibay stressed to her audience.
Assisting her in this goal was Jose Sanchez, director of Immigration, Refugees and Migrant Services for Catholic Charities, Diocese of Camden.
Just that morning, he said, 18 immigrants walked into his Camden office without appointments, looking for assistance of all kinds – furniture, food, necessities, clothing and medical visits. None were turned away.
In the past decade, Sanchez noted, Catholic Charities of South Jersey has served people from 20 countries, including Mexico, Cuba, Afghanistan and the Ukraine.
“Each one coming in is our neighbor, and we should be able to help them,” he said.
Addressing misconceptions that some might have of those coming to the United States, Sanchez affirmed that, indeed, the individuals he’s come into contact with “want to contribute to society, want to provide for their families, want education for their children that’s a lot better than what they left. They build businesses and hire others, contributing to our economy.”
“They see the United States of America as a place where the American dream can happen. And it does. Look at Mr. Aldouri,” Sanchez continued, glancing over at fellow speaker Moustafa Aldouri.
Aldouri, a former case manager for Catholic Charities, shared how he and his family found work and resettlement through Catholic Charities of South Jersey after fleeing persecution in Iraq.
The trio’s witness and testimony to the realities of migrants and refugees “was a wake-up call to walk with our sisters and brothers in solidarity,” said Dr. Michael Sims, diocesan director of the Office of Life and Justice. “Their stories resonated [with others] in presenting the political, social and economic realities of migration.”
The event formally concluded with a prayer from Msgr. Peter Joyce, pastor of Saint Charles Borromeo, who asked God’s blessing on “those gathered this night to respond to the cry” of the migrant and refugee, and that “what we seek to accomplish on behalf of our sisters and brothers be aided by your grace.”
Attendees had the opportunity to take home literature to guide their next steps, including an explanation of the root causes of migration, such as persecution, violence, war, economics and environmental displacement.
Another pamphlet discussed the Catholic Church’s stance on migration, including these words of Saint John XXIII: “Every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own country; and, when there are just reasons for it, the right to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there. The fact that one is a citizen of a particular state does not detract in any way from his membership in the human family as a whole, nor from his citizenship in the world community.”
Frank Adams, a member of Saint Charles Borromeo’s Life and Justice Ministry, said he was moved by the personal anguish of the speakers’ stories. “Moving forward, “I’d like to find ways to help this population,” he said.
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