Shelters and similar facilities across the southwest were set up by the Biden administration and its predecessors to deal with surges of minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without parents or guardians. For the faithful young people they hold, the clergy and volunteers who visit bring comfort and healing through the sacraments.
EL PASO, TEXAS -- On all but three Sunday afternoons since last Easter, Bob Guerra -- a Catholic deacon -- has carefully packed his favorite crucifix, a Spanish-language Bible, hundreds of Communion wafers secured in Ziploc bags and other liturgical items into a plastic storage box.
Among the teens praying fervently at Fort Bliss during last year's unprecedented arrivals of unaccompanied children was Elena, then 15. She asked that she not be identified further because of the dangerous circumstances she fled in Guatemala. In the shelter, she was so grateful for Mass, which she used to attend with her mother in Guatemala, that she braided a friendship bracelet for Seitz, who wears several on his right wrist.
Suddenly and often tragically detached from their countries and the families who raised them, "their only strength is prayer," said the Rev. Jose de la Cruz Longoria, pastor at five Catholic parishes around Pecos, Texas, who ministers to teens at the shelter there. "That's why the point is to show them at Mass that he's a God who loves and forgives."
Some have no family, but many are rejoining a parent or are sent to other family members in the United States to escape poverty and violence. "They don't have any taste yet for the end of the tunnel. They can't allow themselves to feel that already this is a victory and a blessing from God," says Lissa Jimenez, a psychologist who held a day-long spiritual retreat at the Pecos facility in March.
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