There are an estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., and, as Marco’s story demonstrates, there are many more who have lived in the States but are now back in their home countries. With U.S. Comprehensive Immigration Reform high on the current congressional agenda, it is crucial that we ground our understanding of the issue in people’s stories and lived experiences.

Witness for Peace's Mexico-based International Team partnered with documentarian Kate Fenner to bring you the following three documentary shorts.

Josefina Reyes was assassinated with a gunshot to the head outside her barbeque stand last January. Her crime? Protesting the U.S.-backed war on drugs that has killed almost 35,000 Mexicans since 2006.

What's NOT working in the U.S. War on Drugs?

An overview of how free trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA drive immigration to the United States.

On the heels of the World Day for Migrants and Refugees and the massacre of 71 migrants in Tamaulipas, Witness for Peace’s Mexico-based International Team reports on the economic and military policies influencing immigrants.

See what a New York police officer learns about the roots of migration when he travels to Mexico in this WFP documentary.

A documentary following a group from North Carolina as they come face to face with the roots of migration in Mexico.

The United States has failed to change course in the war on drugs, despite indicators that the Mérida Initiative is doing more harm than good.

Hailing from Oaxaca, Mexico, Galindo holds a degree in Indigenous Law and focuses on the impact of migration on identity and family in Oaxacan indigenous communities. In this article she explains how immigration affects her home community.

An estimated 4.13 million people have left Mexico since the decimation of over ten million farming jobs due to NAFTA and related economic reforms. This is one man's story.

How was NAFTA has failed to live up to its promises of bringing growth and prosperity to Mexico?

Military aid to Mexico is exacerbating violence but doing little to curb drug trafficking.

Watch WFP organizer Ben Beachy break down the Merida Initiative in the context of Mexico's escalating violence.

The Merida Initiative is supposed to combat organized crime and drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America. But the Initiative's focus on a military aid has human rights advocates worried.

Why are people like Fidel Santiago Martinez risking their lives to immigrate to the U.S.?

How can the United States force people to risk their lives crossing a desert and then call them criminals or collateral damage when they do or don’t survive the test?

An overview of the impacts of NAFTA in Mexico and the threat of the expanding free trade model in the hemisphere.

An report by Robert Saper, a Witness for Peace International Team member based in Mexico.