Border Angels

Border Angels (also known as Angeles De La Frontera) is a San Diego-based 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit charitable organization that is focused on migrant rights, immigration reform, and the prevention of immigrant deaths along the border. Border Angels, along with its more than 2000 volunteers serves San Diego County's immigrant population through various migrant outreach programs such as day laborer outreach and legal assistance, and provides life-saving assistance for migrants by placing bottled water in remote mountain and desert border regions of the San Diego and Imperial counties, California.

Border Angels was begun in 1986 by founder and director Enrique Morones (grandson of Luis Negrette Morones), initially to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants living in the canyons of San Diego's North County region. The group's focus later expanded to humanitarian efforts aimed at saving the lives of migrants by depositing bottled water at remote spots in the desert and mountains along the U.S.-Mexico border where migrants are known to travel on foot. Morones has said the "spark" that started the Border Angels work was a trip he took with members of a Catholic Church parish in Carlsbad to canyons in northern San Diego County where children, women and families were living in difficult conditions. (source: Border Angels Annual Awards Dinner Celebration program publication, 11-1-2015). He continued visits bringing water, food and other supplies to the canyon residents. After living in Los Angeles for several years, in 1993 Morones met and discussed his work with Ethel Kennedy, widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and a campaigner for human rights, who encouraged him to expand the work and to use the media to draw attention to the struggles of migrants and the need for humanitarian assistance. Since that meeting, Border Angels has grown to provide human services throughout the US-Mexico border region, collaborating with hundreds of universities and human rights groups, as well as partnering with multiple shelters and community organizations on both sides of the US-Mexico border.