Border pastors rescue refugees from evil, protect from pandemic

By Elket Rodríguez

Sosa with refugee children in 2019.

“Let the unaccompanied children come to me,” Rosalio Sosa says—in deeds if not actual words—as he responds to immigrant children being returned to the Mexican desert by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Sosa coordinates Red de Albergues Para Migrantes (Migrant Shelter Network), a ministry that serves 2,800 refugees in 14 immigrant shelters in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. Most of the shelters are located in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso. But his network extends to Palomas, a village about 100 miles west into the desert.

Child victims of human trafficking are being rescued every day in those shelters, especially the one in Palomas. Fellowship Southwest provides the operational costs for the Palomas shelter.

"I've been receiving a lot of unaccompanied children, and children victims of human trafficking lately," Sosa said. "They are being sent through a very dangerous place—the desert, which is a high drug and human-trafficking zone. Five months ago there was a gruesome massacre in Palomas.”

Advocacy groups are urging the U.S. government to end its policy that calls for expelling asylum-seekers and unaccompanied children without due process. The practice undermines U.S. refugee, immigration and anti-trafficking laws, the groups stress.

Meanwhile, Sosa remains vigilant to look after these vulnerable people. Last week, he rescued a 14-year-old girl from a trafficker. 

"They walked into the shelter, and I knew she was not an adult," Sosa reported. "The girl said she was 18 years old. As soon as I said they had to be separated by gender, the trafficker started arguing with me until he finally fled."

The girl lived in Aguas Prietas, miles away from the shelter. Her 16-year-old boyfriend enticed her, then abandoned her to the trafficker. Her situation left Sosa broken-hearted, yet determined to withstand the strain placed on the Palomas shelter, brought on by the U.S. expulsion of unaccompanied children to Mexico.

"We are receiving 50 to 60 migrants every day," he said. "In Palomas, the U.S. is returning migrants who crossed (into the United States) in Nogales, Ariz., and Santa Teresa, N.M. We are talking about a lot of miles—337 miles to be precise." 

Sosa's new challenge is providing food for 42 Mexican pastors families who have been impacted by the economic calamity brought on by the coronavirus. "These are men of  God who are willing to get dirty with the migrants,” he noted. “Some of them have even turned their churches into shelters.” 

This week, Fellowship Southwest provided a grant that will feed the pastors and their families for a month.

God’s movement through Sosa’s ministry parallels how the Holy Spirit supported the apostles. God opens doors, does wonders and draws people to him for salvation. 

"Some months ago, a cartel big shot in his sixties gave his life to Christ," Sosa recalled. "I saw this drunk man on the floor. I helped him get to his house. He started talking to me. He said that he hadn't been able to sleep for two months, because he killed his best friend."

The man told Sosa: "They told me I had to (kill my friend), or they would kill me and my family. Drugs and alcohol haven't helped me sleep or get through this.”

Sosa listened to the man, a drug trafficker, tell his story, sitting in his mansion. Sensing a divine opportunity, Sosa spoke. 

"I shared the gospel with him and reminded him that all he needed was forgiveness,” Sosa said. “He repented, and we felt the presence of the Holy Spirit with us there. Now, he serves Christ. He went to the cartel leader and told him he was quitting. The cartel leader reminded him he couldn't get out of the cartel alive. My friend told the cartel leader, 'Kill me now; I'm alive in my heart.’”    

More than 700 miles west, in Tijuana, Mexico, the refugee ministry situation is changing quickly for Juvenal González. Recently, U.S. citizens and U.S. legal residents have been allowed to cross into Mexico, but Mexican citizens have not received permission to enter the United States. 

But now, "I'm hearing they could close the border completely, without exception" González noted. "The hospitals in Chula Vista, Calif.—three miles from the border—are receiving a lot of persons with COVID-19. The virus is also rapidly spreading in Tijuana, and the news is not reporting this.”

He supports two shelters that house 120 refugees in Tijuana, just south of San Diego. He also provides food for a group of 25 pastoral families in Tijuana. The pastors are bivocational church starters. Because of economic recession brought on by the pandemic, their church members have lost their jobs, and the pastors have either lost their jobs, or their work hours have been cut back radically.

"The situation here is critical. A lot of churches don't have the financial needs to continue operating," González said. "If it wasn't for the help we've received from Fellowship Southwest, pastors wouldn't be able to survive" now that most churches only receive $15 to $25 in offerings per week.

"When I gave the pastors the money Fellowship Southwest sent to help them during this crisis, they almost cried because they weren't expecting it," he said. 

Prompted by the spread of the coronavirus and the border closing, the migrant population served by Primera Iglesia Bautista in Piedras Negras in its two shelters is declining.  

"We have 30 migrants in our shelters. We once had 150 persons." Pastor Israel Rodriguez said. "Some are returning to their countries. Others are crossing (into the United States), just to see if they get deported. Those waiting for their immigration cases are moving to other places.”

The Mexican government has been transferring immigrants to other Mexican cities, such as Monterrey, rather than deporting them to their homelands. Monterey is about 250 miles from Piedras Negras.

And while the Mexican government would prefer deportation, it can’t afford the cost, Rodriguez said. So, internal displacement has become common practice.

"Last weekend, I saw three buses full of immigrants leave for the immigration center in Monterrey," Rodriguez said. "Mexican authorities are more aggressive trying to detain migrants. If they see migrants outside of our shelter, they will try and transfer them. 

"The government is just trying to make the immigrants desperate, so they alone will decide to return home. The government doesn't want to invest the money to deport them."

In the midst of all this, Rodriguez is grateful no migrants are infected with COVID-19. But he can't predict what will happen next in his ministry and in the lives of the immigrants. 

"Everything is stuck," he lamented. "Migrants are realizing it is impossible to enter the United States. There is a lot of uncertainty and fear about the coronavirus, too. The city is desolate. We are expecting what is going to happen next.  " 

Down near the Gulf of Mexico Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville’s immigrant respite center will remain closed for at least two and a half weeks, Pastor Carlos Navarro reported. 

"The city of Brownsville authorized our church to open the respite center … May 11," Navarro said. The church’s respite center serves asylum seekers who live in tent camps in Matamoros. Once they get a date for a final hearing, they cross into the United States, heading to live with sponsors until their court date. IBWB gives them an opportunity to take a shower, provides clean clothes, gives them a meal and a goodie bag for the long bus trip, and shares the gospel with them. 

During the pandemic-imposed down time, the church has been constructing a new respite center, with female and male showers and dorm rooms, and a room where immigrants can eat and rest before departing for the bus station. Fellowship Southwest has raised the money to construct the building, which should be completed in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, Navarro continues to assess the situation in the lower Rio Grande Valley, identifying opportunities to serve. For volunteers’ safety, Navarro’s church is not sending food and supplies to the immigrant camps in Matamoros. But Navarro has been feeding the homeless—most of them immigrants—on the streets of Brownsville.

Up the Rio Grande, Pastor Lorenzo Ortiz’s El Buen Samaritano Migrante ministry continues to operate three shelters in northeastern Mexico—two in Nuevo Laredo, just across from Laredo, Texas, and one in Saltillo, further inland.

Because of restrictions on border crossings, Ortiz has spent most of the past several weeks in Nuevo Laredo, his daughter, Ruth Ortiz, said. “The need continues, as migrant families are still required by the U.S. to show up to their hearings and be given a new hearing date. Therefore, my father continues to transport, supply, and assist migrant families daily.” Sometimes, he makes two round trips between Nuevo Laredo and Monterey—140 miles one-way.

“He recently crossed the border, and it seems he will be able to do so,” she said. 

Fellowship Southwest provides funds each month to buy food, medicine and essential supplies for each of Ortiz’s shelters, and FSW recently purchased appliances and dining furniture for the Nuevo Laredo shelters.

Fellowship Southwest provides ongoing support for the refugee ministries provided by these and other pastors. If you would like to help them be the presence of Christ for immigrants, click here.