As the political debate rages over how to manage a new surge of migrants, Catholics like Rosario Reynolds living along the U.S.-Mexico border face a more personal dilemma: how to respond to desperate new arrivals they encounter in their communities and churches every day.
Reynolds, a 64-year-old public school teacher for deaf students in El Paso, Texas, said she doesn’t know what the right response to the border crisis is on a government level, but as Catholics, “We have a responsibility to help.”
She taught a deaf migrant American Sign Language. Her husband, Michael, drove a young man across the state to reunite him with his brother and U.S. sponsor.
“The family reunion was so beautiful,” she said. “I feel like that was what God was calling us to do.”
Last year, 2.76 million migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, according to U.S. government estimates — the most ever recorded in U.S. history.
In Washington May 11, in a narrow 219-213 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Secure the Border Act of 2023, which mandates the completion of a border wall and other measures aimed at ramping up border security.
The measure has very little chance of passing in the majority Democrat Senate and President Joe Biden has already vowed to veto it. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops strongly condemned the bill, calling it “extreme” and its passage “beyond justification.”
May 12, the U.S. bishops representing border dioceses from San Diego to Brownsville issued a statement.
“Daily, we witness the human consequences of migration, both its blessings and its challenges,” the bishops said. “We are each bound by a universal call to serve one another and to protect the sanctity of human life in all its forms.”
Raul Cruz, who has spent significant amounts of time at the border as a volunteer with national humanitarian aid group United Cajun Navy, said some residents who have offered a helping hand have been taken advantage of.
“I was talking to a gentleman a little while ago, he’s a property owner (in Reynosa), he’s trying to help out these immigrants by letting them stay on his property, but even he said, ‘You know what, I try to give them water, I try to do stuff for them, but if I don’t watch it, they’ll steal my broom, they’ll steal my sandals, they’ll steal anything that’s there,’” shared Cruz.
In large part, these communities along the border are primarily Hispanic, majority Catholic, and though they have by-in-large responded with incredible generosity, they are by no means wealthy.
“This is one of the poorest sectors of the United States,” said Father Raphael Garcia, an El Paso parish priest.
Despite the region’s relative poverty, Father Garcia said, “I think it’s very much part of the people’s DNA, it’s part of the people’s consciousness that migration is a reality and that family separation is painful, and so I think the people here are very much aware and sensitive and very welcoming to people who are migrating and fleeing violence and injustice.”
Father Garcia said his parish, Sacred Heart in downtown El Paso, responded to the need by opening a migrant shelter last December.
Though it can house about 120, Sacred Heart made headlines May 15, as a viral video showed hundreds of migrants camping out all around the church. The shelter has been regularly filled over capacity with around 1,200 arriving at its doors when the video was taken.
“When we’ve had these large numbers, we’ve focused on (sheltering) women and children, we just cannot help everybody,” Garcia said.
Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in the far-southern tip of the U.S.-Mexico border, said despite the surging numbers of migrants, her work is focused on “helping restore human dignity.”
Reynolds and her husband share the same convictions, but the scope of the crisis can be overwhelming at times.
“It’s too many people to help, but somebody has to help them somewhere,” she said.
