Border shelters have relieved pressure during migrant influxes. Under Trump, they could become a target.

By VALERIE GONZALEZ

McALLEN, Texas — When Roselins Sequera’s family of seven finally arrived in the United States from Venezuela, they spent weeks in a migrant shelter on the Texas border that provided them with a place to sleep, meals and advice on finding work.

“We were planning to go to Iowa” to join friends, said Sequera, who arrived at Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in October. “But we didn’t know how.”

Dozens of shelters run by humanitarian groups on the U.S.-Mexico border have taken in large numbers of migrants, providing support and relief to overwhelmed cities. They work closely with the Border Patrol to care for migrants released with an immigration court summons, many of whom don’t know where they are or how to find the nearest airport or bus station.

But Republican oversight of the shelters is intensifying and allies of President-elect Donald Trump see them as a magnet for illegal immigration. Many are nonprofits that rely on federal funding, including $650 million through a single program last year alone.

The new Trump administration has pledged to implement an ambitious immigration agenda, including a campaign promise of mass deportations. The White House’s potential new game plan includes using the National Guard to stop migrants and installing barrier buoys on the waters between the United States and Mexico.

As part of that agenda, Trump’s new border czar, Tom Homan, pledged to review the role of nongovernmental organizations and determine whether they helped open “the doors to this humanitarian crisis.” Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who along with Elon Musk was tapped by Trump to find ways to cut federal spending, signaled that these groups were in his crosshairs and called them a “waste of government money.” taxpayers.”

“Americans deserve transparency about opaque foreign aid and nonprofit groups that support our own border crisis,” Ramaswamy said last month in an article on X.

The Trump administration did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

These developments have alarmed immigration advocates and some officials in border communities, including Republicans, who say these communities can collapse without shelter or a budget to pay for humanitarian costs.

Aid groups deny they are aiding illegal immigration. They say they respond to emergencies imposed on border towns and carry out humanitarian work.

“The groundwork is being laid here in Texas for a broader attack on nonprofits that are simply trying to protect people’s civil rights,” said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a defense group.

Over the past year, Texas has launched investigations into six organizations that provide shelter, food and travel advice to migrants. Courts have so far largely rebuffed the state’s efforts, including rejecting a lawsuit seeking to close El Paso’s House of the Annunciation, but several cases remain on appeal.

The Texas Civil Rights Project, which represents two organizations under investigation by the state, says it has trained more than 100 migrant aid organizations in the weeks after Trump’s re-election on how to respond if investigators come knocking.

The Texas investigations began after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott alleged in 2022, without evidence, that border nonprofits were encouraging illegal crossings and transportation of migrants.

Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which operates a shelter in McAllen for 1,200 people, was informed in March by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that authorities wanted to question executive director Sister Norma Pimentel , to investigate the existence of “practices”. for facilitating the passage of foreigners across the border between Texas and Mexico.

Pimentel declined to comment to The Associated Press, citing the ongoing case, but lawyers representing his organization responded to the charges in court as “a fishing expedition into a pond where no one has ever seen a fish”.

In downtown McAllen, a large lobby serves as a welcome center where families receive travel information while their children play with volunteers. This year, nearly 50,000 migrants passed through the shelter. Personal effects and mattresses are in a separate section, sandwiched between the hall and the kitchen.

The Sequeras, who stayed for two weeks, began waking up at 6 a.m., removing mattresses from the floor and eating breakfast at 7 a.m. They carried out other tasks such as cleaning or laundry to keep the large shelter functioning.

Volunteer lawyers help migrants apply for work authorization. Without that help, Sequera said, the process would have taken longer to learn and cost them thousands of dollars before they could continue their journey north.

McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos is at odds with Paxton, a fellow Republican, over the investigation into Catholic Charities. His city has found room for about 140 migrants per day in 2024 — a dramatic drop from 2021, when a surge in crossings across the southern U.S. border that year pushed the shelter to exceeded its maximum capacity and forced it to close for several days.

“They achieved their goal because the federal authorities did not act as they were supposed to,” Villalobos said. “In McAllen, we would have been lost without them. »

Former McAllen Mayor Jim Darling still remembers the night he received a call from the city manager in 2014 saying the bus station was closing, but 25 migrants were still waiting for a bus. He asked Pimentel of Catholic Charities for help.

Hidalgo County authorities turned to Pimentel in 2021 when migrants were released without COVID-19 testing. Catholic Charities conducted tests and quarantined those who tested positive.

The shelters received help from U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who since 2019 has provided them with federal funding through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He fended off Republican opposition last year.

“Are they going to attack him again and try to eliminate him? Cuellar said. “Yes.”

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Originally published: January 5, 2025 at 7:10 a.m. MST