McALLEN, Texas — When Roselins Sequera’s household of seven lastly reached the United States from Venezuela, they spent weeks in a migrant shelter on the Texas border that gave them a spot to sleep, meals and recommendation on discovering work.
“We had plans to go to Iowa” to affix buddies, stated Sequera, who arrived at Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in October. “But we did not understand how.”
Dozens of shelters run by support teams on the U.S. border with Mexico have welcomed massive numbers of migrants, offering a lifeline of help and aid to overwhelmed cities. They work carefully with the Border Patrol to take care of migrants launched with notices to seem in immigration courtroom, lots of whom have no idea the place they’re or how you can discover the closest airport or bus station .
But Republican scrutiny of the shelters is intensifying, and allies of President-elect Donald Trump view them as a magnet for unlawful immigration. Many are nonprofit organizations that depend on federal funding, together with $650 million underneath one program final yr alone.
The new Trump administration has pledged to advance an bold immigration agenda, together with a marketing campaign promise of mass deportations. The new White House’s potential agenda contains utilizing the National Guard to apprehend migrants and putting in buoy obstacles in waters between the United States and Mexico.
As a part of that agenda, Trump’s new border czar, Tom Homan, has promised to evaluation the function of non-governmental organizations and whether or not they have helped open “the doorways to this humanitarian disaster.” Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who together with Elon Musk has been tapped by Trump to seek out methods to chop federal spending, has flagged the teams as being in his sights and referred to as them “a waste of taxpayer {dollars}.”
“Americans deserve transparency in regards to the opaque overseas support and nonprofit teams abetting our border disaster,” Ramaswamy stated in an X submit final month.
The Trump administration didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark.
The developments have alarmed immigration advocates and a few officers in border communities, together with Republicans, who say these communities might collapse with out housing house or a price range to pay humanitarian prices.
Humanitarian teams deny serving to unlawful immigration. They say they’re responding to emergencies imposed on border cities and finishing up humanitarian work.
“Here in Texas, the groundwork is being laid for a broader assault on nonprofit organizations which might be simply making an attempt to guard folks’s civil rights,” stated Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, an advocacy group.
Over the previous yr, Texas has launched investigations into six organizations that present housing, meals and journey recommendation to migrants. Courts have up to now largely rejected the state’s efforts, together with dismissing a lawsuit to shut El Paso’s Annunciation House, however a number of instances stay on enchantment.
The Texas Civil Rights Project, which represents two organizations investigated by the state, says it has skilled greater than 100 migrant support organizations within the weeks since Trump’s reelection on how you can reply if investigators come knocking.
The Texas investigations started after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott claimed in 2022, with out proof, that nonprofits on the border have been encouraging unlawful crossings and transporting migrants.
The Catholic Charity of the Rio Grande Valley, which operates a shelter in McAllen with capability for 1,200 folks, was knowledgeable in March by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that authorities needed to interview the manager director, Sister Norma Pimentel, to analyze whether or not “practices to facilitate alien crossings throughout the Texas-Mexico border” existed.
Pimentel declined to remark to The Associated Press, citing the continuing case, however legal professionals representing his group responded to the allegations in courtroom by calling them a “fishing expedition in a pond the place nobody has ever seen a fish.”
In downtown McAllen, a big foyer serves as a welcome middle the place households obtain journey data whereas their youngsters play with volunteers. Nearly 50,000 migrants have handed by means of the shelter this yr. Personal belongings and mattresses are positioned in a separate part between the corridor and the kitchen.
The Sequeras, who stayed for 2 weeks, adopted a routine of waking at 6 a.m., eradicating mats from the ground and having breakfast by 7 a.m. They carried out different jobs reminiscent of cleansing or doing laundry to maintain the massive shelter working.
Volunteer legal professionals assist migrants apply for work authorization. Without that assist, Sequera stated, the method would have taken longer to study and would have value them 1000’s of {dollars} earlier than they may proceed their journey north.
McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos is at odds with Paxton, a fellow Republican, over the Catholic Charities investigation. His metropolis discovered room for about 140 migrants a day in 2024 — a dramatic drop from 2021, when a surge in crossings throughout the southern U.S. border that yr put the shelter past capability and compelled it to shut for a number of days.
“They served their goal as a result of the feds did not act as they have been alleged to,” Villalobos stated. “We would have been misplaced in McAllen with out them.”
Former McAllen Mayor Jim Darling nonetheless remembers the night time in 2014 when he acquired a telephone name from town supervisor explaining that the bus station was closing, however 25 migrants have been nonetheless ready for the bus. He requested Pimentel at Catholic Charities for assist.
Hidalgo County authorities turned to Pimentel in 2021 as migrants have been being launched with out COVID-19 assessments. Catholic Charities performed testing and quarantined those that examined optimistic.
The shelters have acquired assist from U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who has directed federal funding to them by means of the Federal Emergency Management Agency since 2019. Last yr he fended off Republican opposition.
“Will they assault him once more and attempt to remove him?” Cuellar stated. “YES.”
