In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Texas to remove concertina wire from along the river.
Dylan Corbett, executive director of Hope Border Institute, a Catholic organization that supports migrants in the border area around El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, told Religion News Service that targeting humanitarian organizations at the border is the way to create chaos at the border.
“If your strategy is to sow chaos at the border, this is how you do it,” Corbett said, adding that collaboration between faith groups and the federal government is what maintains dignity and order at the border.
Corbett said the new state law on illegal border crossings, scheduled to go into effect March 5, will erode trust between law enforcement and migrants and mixed families.
Corbett called Paxton’s lawsuit “an escalation in their war on migrants, on border communities, on people of color in Texas,” and said that it was “intended to have a chilling effect,” sowing fear in volunteers who work with migrants.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Catholic, launched Operation Lone Star in 2021, when he used a disaster declaration to deploy the Texas National Guard to the border.
The governor’s posture on border security grew into a standoff with the federal government over access to the border earlier this year.
On Jan. 12, while the Texas Military Department blocked U.S. Border Patrol’s access to the border, a woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande. Even after those drownings, the department did not allow Border Patrol access to rescue two more migrants in distress, who were rescued by Mexican authorities.
A group of Catholic and borderland humanitarian organizations put out a statement on Wednesday (Feb. 21) signaling their intent to stand behind Annunciation House. “Annunciation House is an essential, reliable, and faithful partner in the El Paso community,” they wrote.
The group included Corbett’s Hope Border Institute, Estrella del Paso, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Border Servant Corps, Franciscan Action Network, St. Columban Mission for Justice, Peace and Ecology, the Sisters of Mercy, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Pax Christi USA, Catholic Charities of Southern New Mexico, Texas Rising, Abara, the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns and Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción.
Seitz, Corbett and the broader coalition of organizations all raised Paxton’s actions as an attack on religious liberty.
