{"id":1020,"date":"2010-05-05T16:22:17","date_gmt":"2010-05-05T16:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=458"},"modified":"2010-05-05T16:22:17","modified_gmt":"2010-05-05T16:22:17","slug":"it-took-three-months-of-walking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=1020","title":{"rendered":"It took three months of walking…"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the immigration debate continues to heat up, we went to the Casa Juan Diego House of Hospitality in the heart of Houston to look at this issue ‘up close and personal,’ so to speak. \u00a0 The Casa Juan Diego is a cluster of 10 Catholic Worker Houses that take in illegal immigrant women, children and men. \u00a0 Men like Juan. \u00a0 Juan and his brother lived in rural Guatemala. He told me he made $2.75 a day as a woodworker, his brother made $1 a day as a small farmer. \u00a0 Their elderly mom got sick and needed a heart operation. \u00a0 It would cost $2,000. \u00a0 They came to America together to raise money for the operation. \u00a0 It took them three months of walking, stealing away on the outside of train cars, being shaken down and extorted by Mexican immigration agents… \u00a0 They, consequently, have been put up at Casa Juan Diego in Houston. \u00a0 Here their room and board is free and they have access to medical attention. \u00a0 During the day, they hire out from street corners to do day labor. \u00a0 But because of the recession, work is sporadic at best, said Casa volunteer Josh Johnson. \u00a0 Johnson has heard the heartbreaking stories, over and over. \u00a0 Of immigrants who have lost limbs falling off trains in Mexico on their way north. \u00a0 Of desperate mothers and children who have died in desert crossings near the border. \u00a0 Of immigrant women who have been raped and killed by drug cartels… \u00a0 Johnson said “first generation immigrants in this country,” for the most part, are not criminals. \u00a0 But if they are marginalized and not helped, the next generation is more prone to commit crimes. \u00a0 He also said that often immigrants don’t come here to live long-term. \u00a0 But rather they are here to make enough to raise both themselves, and family back home, out of dire poverty. \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> \u00a0 Mark and Louise Swick, co-founders of the Casa Juan Diego House, have recently published the book The Catholic Worker Movement \u00a0 (Intellectual and Spiritual Origins)<\/em><\/strong>. \u00a0 The ethos of the Catholic Worker Movement is to, well, do just what they are doing in Houston. \u00a0 Help those less fortunate. \u00a0 For more on Casa Juan Diego, see…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the immigration debate continues to heat up, we went to the Casa Juan Diego House of Hospitality in the heart of Houston to look at this issue ‘up close and personal,’ so to speak. \u00a0 The Casa Juan Diego …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}