Victim of fatigue and anxiety because of dehydration, abandoned in the desert by the guide who promised me to get me to Arizona where my brother was waiting for me, I was lost and all alone. I implored the Virign of Guadalupe, she took mercy on me and made so I was found by other immigrants who helped me to get from there to North Carolina.

December 12, 2000
Iztapalapa, Mexico City

My family and I crossed over into Arizona to meet up with my husband in Phoenix where he lived and worked. We ran out of water in one day and stopped at some ruins near Arivaca to rest. We were very sick from dehydration. Suddenly an old truck appeared out of nowhere. A man with blue eyes got out and gave us some water jugs and plastic bags of food. He told us the best road to take to Tucson and where to find help in our journey. I thank Saint Toribio for helping us survive our journey.

With the promise “to be together till death do us apart” the boy Marquitos and his father Jose Antonio Villaseñor took off from Mexico with the illusion of prosperity. In Reynosa, Tamaulipas, together with 70 others people without documents, they got in the trailer of a truck going to Houston, Texas. After few hours of terrible agony, they were found hugging each other but with no life in them like 11 others Mexicans and 5 more Latin Americans. They all died asphyxiated and dehydrated. They were left without mercy by the mean smugglers in the town of Victoria, south of Houston. Morning of May 14, 2003, when I heard these painful news, I entrusted their souls to the Holy Virgin of the Solitude and the Lord of Chalma. I also ask to protect those who escaped the death.

Alfredo Vilchis Roque, Mexico City, 2003

Three cubans spent a month in open sea. Dehydrated by heat they finally arrived to the beaches of Mexico.