EL PASO, Texas (RNS) — On their spreadsheets, down the list on their prayer table and off their tongues after a long day of ministry roll the names — of the man who is slowly but unsteadily regaining his grip on reality after being deported to Cuba, of the woman facing deportation to Brazil after more than a year in detention fighting for asylum, of the son whose mother fell to the floor screaming “take me instead” as he was detained at immigration court.
Carlos was the name that launched Scalabrinian Sisters Leticia Gutiérrez Valderrama and Elisete Signor’s pastoral response to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts. Gutiérrez Valderrama met Carlos on a trip last year to witness the increased immigration agent presence at immigration court, and he looked “like he had won the lottery,” she recalled, when she offered to accompany him.
“He was the instrument for us to develop the ministry accompanying migrants at the courts,” Gutiérrez Valderrama told parishioners at a volunteer recruitment event at St. Francis of Assisi Parish on March 5.
There are still days at the immigration court when federal agents, waiting to potentially detain people after court, are staked out by the elevators or leaning on the atrium railing behind family members who nervously await their loved ones. But now, Gutiérrez Valderrama or her court volunteers are always there to sit with them.
With the help of about 30 volunteers, since June of last year, the ministry begun by the two sisters has accompanied more than 1,000 people in immigration court, and they’ve accompanied about 300 people in immigration detention each year.
When the immigrants finish, if …
