FSW’s partner Lorenzo Ortiz takes on another task—transportation coordinator

By Elket Rodríguez

Pastor Lorenzo Ortiz always finds a way to serve people in dire need.

As director of the El Buen Samaritano Migrante ministry, he feeds and protects more than 100 refugees in three shelters in the Mexican states of Coahuila and Tamaulipas.

But he never considers that mammoth commitment as an excuse not to help others. 

That’s why he’s securing transportation for hundreds of immigrants seeking U.S. asylum who are being released by government officials in Del Rio, Texas. The border city is a port of entry that has not received as much attention as the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso and San Diego. But traffic through Del Rio has surged, as migrants have been allowed to enter the United States through the “catch and release” program. 

“These families are going to saturate the airports and bus stations if we don't coordinate their transportation,” Ortiz explained. As they pass through Del Rio, they are bound for destinations elsewhere—many to New Jersey and others to Florida, for example—to live with family or other sponsors. 

"I am also coordinating their transportation to avoid the spread of COVID-19 in the shelters,” he added.

Ortiz avoids sending immigrants through San Antonio, Texas’ major immigration hub. It is being flooded with immigrants entering the United States elsewhere on the border. So, he is arranging bus and van transportation much closer to their eventual destinations.

Ortiz learned from 2018, when thousands of asylum seekers entered the southern U.S. border and saturated the transportation system in San Antonio. Now, Ortiz assists Shon Young, associate pastor of City Church in Del Rio and director of the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, welcome immigrants and also speed them on their way.

“I am helping in Del Rio, because it is the first place where they are having difficulties with the transportation and the influx of immigrants," Ortiz said. “So far, we have managed to get many families to their destinations to decongest San Antonio.” 

Ortiz is coordinating logistics with a regional bus company that already has transported more than 200 asylum seekers directly to New Jersey, Florida and Houston, he said. 

He also is monitoring the situation in his hometown, Laredo, Texas, where immigration officials are expected to open yet another port of entry. Then, the work will take on a personal tone for Ortiz, because the shelters he operates across the border in Mexico will bid farewell to migrants as they enter the United States.

If you would like to contribute to Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant relief ministry, which supports the work of Lorenzo Ortiz and other pastors all along the U.S.-Mexico border, click here. 

Elket Rodríguez is the immigrant and refugee advocacy and missions specialist for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Fellowship Southwest.