Right after midnight on March 21, 1998, Enrique Morones was the first United States citizen of Mexican parentage to request dual citizenship after Mexican law allowed foreign nationals to apply.

Morones, born in San Diego, Calif., is the grandson of Luis N. Morones, founder of a confederation of Mexican labor unions, a group that was part of a broad political coalition, something like the relationship between the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party, only more partisan.

In June of 1998, President Ernesto Zedillo personally presented Morones his new documents at the National Palace in Mexico City.

Now, 11 years later, Morones, 47, will again stand before a Mexican president, when Felipe Calderón confers on him Mexico’s 2009 National Human Rights Award for work on migrant rights and as leader of the Border Angels.

Morones graduated from San Diego State University In 1979 and earned a master’s degree in executive leadership from the University of San Diego in 2002. A devout Roman Catholic, he draws on an ethic of Christian doctrine that materializes protest into action to alleviate individual suffering. Farm-labor leader César Chávez was like that.

I first met Morones in February 2006 when he led a nationwide caravan to 40 cities in 40 days to raise awareness about so many desperate people who tried crossing to the U.S. — and died. “If this was the Canadian border you wouldn’t see this — no way,” he had said.

He was invited to speak at a Georgetown University Latino student meeting to explain how his caravan intended to raise awareness about the mounting deaths on the border, sealed after 9/11 to hermetically insulate this country as tight as sandwich baggies claim to keep air out.

As a consequence, the informal movement by migrant people was driven to more treacherous desert corridors. Laborers and seasonal workers, women and children seeking to reunite with husbands and fathers were dying in the long march through increasingly dangerous terrain where only traffickers in human cargo offered a hand — for a price.

Morones and his Border Angels had set out from San Ysidro, Calif., to visit the 40 cities to encourage local leaders to join a national demonstration against draconian House of Representatives-approved legislation that would criminalize up to 12 million migrants in this nation and harshly punish anyone who gave them aid, even those suffering from injury, dehydration and disorientation. The caravan along the way planted 4,400 crosses to honor those who died trying to cross the international divide.

“For the love of God, do something” was the call to the young students, most of whom had never before heard the moral call to act. He pleaded in reasoned, plaintive words. Truth does not have to be yelled at reasonable people. In that fiery gaze of his was the passion of a later-day John the Baptist, a plain-spoken Martin Luther King, Jr., a less self-effacing César Chávez.

Two days later, on the snowy grounds of the U.S. capitol, the three Border Angels were joined by about 30 other activists, including union representatives and students, who held up handmade signs to make their statement.

An onlooking little girl turned to her mother — plainly they were day tourists —  asking what were those people doing. They were there “because somebody is putting up a wall between us,” her mom said.

The Angels were soon gone to Philadelphia, New York, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, Salt Lake City, and Denver on their way back to the West Coast. But at each place, word-of-mouth turned into a national network that included evangelical and Catholic clergy, radio disk jockeys, students, unionists and others.

In March and April 2006 the spark of conscience brought about the largest demonstrations in U.S. history by five million people who paraded in the streets of their cities for immigration reform.

I won’t say Morones caused all that, but I can say I saw the spark in his eyes that ignited something that a child, a mother, some students, unionists, activists and five million others understood.

The human rights commission of Mexico is honoring, like we all should, those persons with fiery eyes who take action when somebody puts up walls between us.

[José de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. His latest digital book, sponsored by The Ford Foundation, is available free at www.DayNightLifeDeathHope.com and is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (2003). E-mail him at [email protected].] © 2009