EL PASO, Texas — Volunteers at humanitarian organizations at the border fear being arrested and prosecuted for sheltering and feeding homeless illegal immigrants who have been camped outside a church in downtown El Paso for weeks to avoid deportation.
Exasperated leaders from the Annunciation House and Catholic Diocese of El Paso pleaded for mercy during discussions with eight senators who visited West Texas to learn about the migration crisis. Community members who have taken in and cared for these thousands on the street across town fear that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) could target them on criminal charges for assisting in the human smuggling process by protecting people who they know do not have documents to be in the country.
ABBOTT HAND-DELIVERS BIDEN A LETTER ON EL PASO TARMAC DENOUNCING HIS BORDER ‘FAILURE’
“The church is at risk because the volunteers are asking themselves, ‘If I feed someone across the street, if I give someone a blanket across the street, if I have to get a family off the street, am I liable to be prosecuted for that?'” said Ruben Garcia, founder and executive director of the Annunciation House in El Paso, in a passionate plea before lawmakers.
“Shame on us that on this day, this is even being brought up in the United States,” Garcia continued. “Tell me, senators, that this is who we are. Tell me that humanitarian work in our country is a prosecutable offense. That is totally unacceptable.”
Their concern comes nearly a month after Abbott announced that he had instructed the state’s attorney general to investigate nonprofit groups that were helping illegal immigrants in El Paso who he suspected could be furthering the smuggling process.
The eight Democratic, independent, and Republican senators heard from local law enforcement, city officials, humanitarian organizations, and faith leaders and then toured the facility where the meeting was held, a shuttered elementary school that the city recently converted into a 1,000-bed shelter for immigrants who have the authorization to be in the country.
The city has been overwhelmed in responding to releases of immigrants. From mid-August to late December 2022, more than 90,000 immigrants who came across the border illegally in El Paso were released into the community. Most immigrants have gone on to other parts of the country because they were given government documents upon release that allow them to remain in the U.S. through court proceedings.
Thousands of the immigrants who came across the largely unguarded border during the influx in late December made their way into downtown without being arrested, ensuring them no future day in court and thus no documents giving them permission to be in the country.
“Approximately 5-6-7,000 refugees that got stuck in limbo, and pictures of them all sleeping on the streets, they’re still here. We’ve been trying to get them off the streets. They’re not processed, and so they’re vulnerable to being picked up by Border Patrol,” said Garcia.
The city has struggled with how to handle the conundrum. Nearly two weeks ago, local officials attempted to clear the streets following growing complaints from residents and businesses over loitering, crime, and public safety issues.
Although the city was able to get immigrants with documentation off the streets and into a shelter at the convention center, plenty more were left on the street because the city and nonprofit groups are forbidden from spending federal money to assist the unauthorized immigrants in the community.
Annunciation House has paid out of its own pocket, unable to be reimbursed by the federal government, to shelter 300 unauthorized immigrants in two hotels to get people off the street as temperatures dipped to freezing or below most nights. Hundreds of more people continued to sleep on the street.
The Rev. Mark Seitz, bishop of El Paso, said comments by political leaders have left the faith community “quite fearful that if we do this, we are going to find ourselves prosecuted for helping” people.
“We’re not in the smuggling business,” said Seitz. “We don’t want to see anybody die in our streets.”
Up to 7,000 immigrants have lingered on the streets of El Paso for several weeks, staying close to churches and humanitarian relief shelters where Border Patrol policy forbids agents from conducting immigration checks.
But it means they are chained to these places where people want to help but worry it could land them in hot water. It also means the city is at an impasse.
“These are people who are undocumented. They didn’t go through the process, they didn’t go through the [U.S. Customs and Border Protection],” said El Paso Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino.
One such immigrant, Juan, of Honduras, was serving donated pizza to other immigrants outside Sacred Heart Church on Jan. 7. Juan said he fled his home because gang members demanded he work with them, and he did not want to. He knew that Hondurans who cross the border illegally would be expelled back to Mexico or Honduras, making the long journey pointless if he got caught at the border.
On Dec. 24, Juan crossed the border several miles east of downtown through a hole beneath a border fence that was built with congressional funding passed during the Obama administration.
Juan said five of his travel companions were expelled from the U.S. after they left the church with a stranger who had offered to give them shelter off the street for the night. They left, he said, with someone who they believed was a Good Samaritan.
The community members who are helping the thousands like Juan asked the senators to petition the Biden administration to remedy the situation and give immigrants a 24- to 48-hour period when they could turn themselves in to Border Patrol with the guarantee that they will not be deported.
For nearly three years, a pandemic public health policy has forced nearly all Central Americans to be sent back to Mexico or their home country, including those seeking asylum but were denied the ability to make a claim.
The pandemic policy, Title 42, has led many Central Americans, including more than 50 immigrants who hid in a tractor-trailer and died when the driver abandoned them on a hot summer day in San Antonio, Texas, last year, to go to extreme measures to avoid being apprehended.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Garcia said he asked President Joe Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during their brief visit to El Paso Sunday to help the thousands of unauthorized immigrants so that the city’s streets can return to normal and nonprofit groups can breathe a sigh of relief that they themselves will not have to fear arrest.
The eight senators on the trip were border state Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), as well as Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Chris Coons (D-DE).
