Touring the U.S.-Mexico border between Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas, Archbishop Stefan Hesse of Hamburg said the towering fortifications and razor wire dividing the two border communities evoked a painful memory in his own country’s history: the Berlin Wall.
“In a way, the inhumanity and massiveness of these border fortifications reminded me of the Berlin Wall, which divided the German capital for nearly 30 years and caused great suffering for the people living there,” Hesse told OSV News in an Aug. 31 interview.
“I found the border situation to be disturbing,” added the archbishop, who serves as chairman of the German bishops’ conference’s migration commission. “Two cities that had essentially grown together into one — and whose populations remain connected in many ways — are now hermetically separated by a border wall and razor wire.”
Hesse embarked on an Aug. 20-27 “solidarity trip” to assess the humanitarian reality along key migration routes, the German bishops’ conference said in a statement published Aug. 20.
Also serving as the conference’s special envoy for refugee issues, the archbishop has embarked on similar trips in past years, including Ukraine, Kenya and Egypt. During his visit, Hesse met migrants, volunteers, aid agency representatives, civil and church leaders, including Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, immediate past chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Migration.
Recalling his visit to Mexico, Hesse told OSV News that, due to restrictive U.S. policies, the country that was once “a country of origin and transit” has now become “a destination country for migrants” and is also facing additional challenges from deportations “out of the U.S.”
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