This Year Was Different.
This year at Kino, we have seen the same faces day after day, week after week. For many migrants, 2025 marked the year that their long wait in Nogales became indefinite. For others, like those deported to Nogales, 2025 was a year that brought uprootedness and a search for forced new beginnings. For those who have decided to settle in Nogales, we have built deeper relationships with them. In 2025, the average migrant spent over 200 days receiving services at Kino. That’s not a stopover. That’s a season. That’s settling into a new home. People perhaps came for a meal, but they stayed for medical care, legal support, job training workshops, or simply community. They stayed through moments of joy and uncertainty, milestones and quiet healing. And we stayed with them. Together, we shared not just resources, but real relationships. We watched children grow taller. We saw resilience deepen. And we knew: this wasn’t just about waiting. It was about creating a sense of home.
In 2025, accompaniment at Kino meant walking with people not just through one meal or one medical visit, but through months of healing, rebuilding, and rediscovering what’s possible. It meant names, not numbers.
Over 200 Days of Accompaniment
This year, the average migrant stayed at Kino for over 200 days.
Building Livelihoods: Dignity Through Work
The length of stay transformed the kinds of support people needed. This year, accompaniment looked like access to education, increased job training opportunities, and long-term planning. The Livelihoods Project expanded to meet this shift, launching accredited baking and computer literacy workshops through a new partnership with CECATI, Nogales’ VoTech institute. Migrants now leave the program with certifications that boost their resumes and help them earn an income.
We saw the need for more transformational income-generating opportunities in migrants like Lourdes*, an 18-year-old from Sinaloa, who joined the baking workshop in late 2024 and continued to hone her skills throughout 2025. Her parents owned a bakery back home, and her skills with conchas quickly stood out. At Kino, she wasn’t just kneading dough. She was reclaiming joy and identity. During her time at KBI, she found new friends and connections, holistic accompaniment to build a dignified life, and even showed off and shared her talents.
Later in the year, we implemented a jewelry-making workshop, offering economic alternatives to single mothers and non-Mexican nationals often excluded from the formal job market. This wasn’t just programming. It was transformation.
New Skills, New Beginnings
181 Livelihoods Project workshops hosted
706 migrants participated in Livelihoods Project* workshops
405 individuals received one-on-one consultations
* Livelihoods Project consultations are specifically designed to help migrants search for employment and to accompany them in cumbersome processes to obtain the documentation they need to work, access banking, education, and healthcare.
Healing in Every Sense: The Shift to Holistic Care
In 2025, incorporating a more holistic approach to medical accompaniment meant making a more sustained effort to meet migrants where they are—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. With migrants staying longer, chronic conditions and mental health needs grew more visible.
The team responded: 1,372+ medical consultations, 184 individual therapy sessions, 60+ group support circles, and 521 people reached through psychosocial workshops. These numbers represent hours of listening, advocating, and accompanying.
Stories like Fernando’s remind us why. Fernando arrived in Nogales after nearly two years in U.S. detention. He was exhausted, newly diagnosed with HIV, and terrified of starting over. Kino provided not only medication, but emotional care, a safe place to process, and steady support. “Being part of the LGBTIQ+ community caused me a lot of problems in those detention centers,” he told us. “At least I made it to Nogales alive. I trust in [God] to help me find the strength to start again.” Today, Fernando is working, reconnecting with his family, and beginning to dream again.
More Than Medicine
At Kino, accompaniment means responding to every kind of pain — emotional, physical, and spiritual. In 2025, the team provided:
- 1,372+ medical consultations
- 184 individual therapy sessions
- 60+ group support circles
- 521 participants in psycho-social workshops
Learn more about holistic accompaniment in “Dignity in Every Dose”
Building Community: More Than a Meal
This year, we didn’t just serve food. We built community. Yes, the numbers are impressive. We served over 30,000 meals in 2025. But what stayed with us wasn’t the total number of meals we served. It was the way the meals were shared. It was the people. It was the way food became a doorway, not just to nourishment, but to belonging.
At Kino, meals are about connection. They’re how someone begins to trust, to return, to stay. We saw that in people like Daniel, who arrived in Nogales traumatized after being deported from the U.S., where he had lived since childhood. In detention, apples were the only thing served with any regularity — and they became a symbol of everything he lost. “Maybe I’ll forgive apples later,” he joked. “But for now, I don’t want to see that fruit.” Slowly, through shared meals and familiar faces, Daniel began to open up. He helped around the shelter, talked with Sister Gladys, and started to believe he could rebuild his life. Kino’s comedor wasn’t just a place to eat. It was where healing began.
Then there’s Federico, who first came to Kino in 2024 with his mother and sister, fleeing violence in Chiapas. Two years later, Nogales has become his home. He visits Kino regularly, not out of necessity, but simply to continue to be part of this community and the spirit of welcome for others who are just arriving. “As long as I’m in Nogales, I’ll always come back,” he told us. The comedor, once a place of emergency, is now a place of grounding.
Read Federico’s full story
This is accompaniment. It’s not just about offering food. It’s about knowing what someone needs and showing up again and again. It’s about a special Father’s Day meal particularly for fathers who couldn’t spend it with their families, laughter in the kitchen, and recognizing when a person needs something other than apples.
In 2025, we served tens of thousands of meals. But more than that—we shared them. Meals became memories. Gatherings became milestones. Father’s Day was one of those moments. As families came together over tacos, we honored the quiet strength of dads rebuilding from loss, like Daniel, who was deported after living most of his life in the U.S. and separated from his loved ones in the process. In Nogales, he found community, healing, and dignity in shared meals and conversations. These shared meals weren’t just about food. They were about kinship and the courage to begin again.
Encounter and Exchange: Welcoming New Audiences
This year, 54 education groups came to Kino. But what made this year different? New faces, new contexts, new questions. Groups like Mormon Women for Ethical Government and Amplify Peace came to Kino for the first time. They joined our long-standing partners in stepping into a sacred encounter. As Sister Eileen says, these kinds of immersion trips are “a place of mutual exchange where relationships are built even in the absence of language skills.”
These visits weren’t one-sided. They sparked reflection and reshaped perspectives. Participants left as storytellers and advocates, ready to amplify migrant voices in their own communities.
New Audiences, Shared Vision
This year, we prioritized hosting new audiences, people who had never been to Kino before and people who could reach across the political divide in our country.
“During the visit, I felt genuinely validated in my views and feelings toward the immigrant community. It reaffirmed my faith in their humanity and the importance of extending love.”
54 Educational Group Visits (12 one-day visits, 10 weekend visits, and 32 one-week visits)
Migration by the Numbers—and Names
This year reshaped us. It reminded us that accompaniment isn’t just about arrival. It’s about presence and persistence. It’s about faith in the slow work of love.
Let’s be clear: the numbers matter. The statistics show scale, investment, and need. But what moved us most in 2025 weren’t the numbers. It was the names. The toddlers who now run toward us with smiles. The fathers who teach their children to pray before meals. The graduates who proudly display their baking certificates. At Kino, they are not clients. They are companions on the road.
We didn’t just count meals or classes or consultations. We saw names and faces. Federico, who stops by the comedor on his day off, still calls it home two years after arriving. Fernando, who found strength and stability through care. Lourdes, who found joy in baking again. Daniel, who couldn’t face another apple after detention but found comfort in the kitchen at Kino.
These names remind us: accompaniment is not transactional. It’s transformational.
The Road Ahead: Into 2026 Together
In 2026, the road will still be long. Policy may still lag. The border may still be broken. But here in Ambos Nogales, accompaniment has never been stronger. When someone walks through our doors, we don’t just see their past. We walk with them into their future. And that future is built with dignity, faith, and friendship.
The journey continues. And we’re more ready than ever because of this year and because of you. As 2025 comes to a close, we invite you to carry these stories with you and walk with us into 2026.
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