Aside from being one of the most important migration corridors in the world, Mexico is becoming an immigrant destination itself, with more and more migrants deciding or needing to stay in the country after failing to enter the United States. Migrant shelters have emerged as an integral part of Mexico’s humanitarian ecosystem, according to BC School of Social Work Assistant Professor Alejandro Olayo-Méndez, S.J. In his new book, Humanitarianism from Below: Faith, Welfare, and the Role of Casas de Migrantes in Mexico (NYU Press, 2025), he offers a detailed look at the experiences and challenges of these migrant shelters. For his research, Fr. Olayo-Méndez traveled along migrant routes several times in order to gain knowledge about how migrants move and how they interact with the migrant shelters. According to Fr. Olayo-Méndez, migrant shelters have emerged as an informal welfare system providing temporary living quarters, organizing food preparation and water distribution, and offering childcare, legal assistance, and money transfer services, among other services. Read more in BC News.