CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — Mesh wire was hurriedly erected along a half-mile section of a route that Pope Francis will transit when he arrives in the Mexican border city of Juárez on Feb. 17. It’s just a small part of the more than 10 miles the pope intends to cover that day, but it offers a glimpse at the actions undertaken by local officials and businessmen to silence Juárez’s victims of violence, poverty and banishment.

“That was the space we were given by the local diocese to make a human chain to receive the pope. The only place where we could speak out to demonstrate our reality has been taken away from us by the authorities,” said Martin Solis, the leader of El Barzón, a peasant organization that has denounced the exploitation of water and land grabs with the use of terrorist tactics, including murder and kidnapping.

Francis chose this point of the border with Texas to end his first visit to Mexico with an unprecedented Mass on the banks of the Rio Grande. Local authorities estimate that more than 210,000 people will participate in the event, and it is expected that thousands more will do the same on the United States side, where giant television screens will be placed. The Mass will be directed to migrants, the focus of his agenda in Mexico.