A Place of Refuge on the Journey
Walking with Immigrants on the Road to a New Life
Reunification is not the end of the story for immigrant families recently separated at the border. Join us as we take a look at the next step of the journey for men, women, and children as they seek a new life in the United States, and meet the dedicated people who are walking with them along the way.
The First Step
Every day in McAllen, Texas, a familiar yet heartbreaking narrative plays out hundreds of times along the road between ICE detention center and the Humanitarian Respite Center run by Catholic Charities. An immigrant family, freshly paroled from the detention center while they await their asylum court hearing, walk for two more blocks in their new, foreign country. They pass signs in English, jumbled in a language they do not know. Since leaving their home in Mexico for a new life in the United States, they have walked for hours in extreme heat without food and water. They have dodged dangerous traffickers and gangs. With weary, uncertain children at their sides, they are emotionally raw from their journey and ragged from exhaustion in the Texas heat.
But in their last few steps to the doors of the bustling shelter, they find refuge. In that moment, they are greeted by what are likely the first friendly faces to show them compassion on their journey.
Since 2014, the Humanitarian Respite Center has served over 100,000 migrants who have fled from Mexico and Central America to seek asylum in the United States. Up to 400 people per day are served at the center by between 25 and 50 volunteers who come from places all over the United States.
The Humanitarian Respite Center exists to offer compassionate help to migrants fleeing economic hardship and often violence in their home countries. They offer showers, food, clothing, and help in locating family members throughout the United States.
The Humanitarian Respite Center previously occupied the parish hall of Sacred Heart Church when parishioners took note of the regular stream of migrants who lingered, looking lost, at the bus station nearby. The center now helps migrants with phone calls to family and bus tickets to where they live.
Catholic Extension’s Family Reunification Fund is a response to the human tragedy unfolding on our southern border, where recent family separations and policy debates have exposed the profound misery of those fleeing their countries and coming to the U.S.
The fund supports ministries like the Humanitarian Respite Center that provide direct outreach and advocacy for immigrant families separated as a consequence of our broken immigration system. The fund mainly benefits existing ministries on the southern U.S. border with Mexico, specifically those that are actively sheltering, defending, and caring for immigrants and their families.
