Border shelters relieved the pressure during migrant surges. Under Trump, they could become a target

McALLEN, Texas — When Roselins Sequera's family of seven finally reached the U.S. from Venezuela, they spent weeks at a migrant shelter on the Texas border that gave them a place to sleep, meals and tips for finding work.

“We had a plan to go to Iowa" to join friends, said Sequera, who arrived at the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in October. “But we didn’t know how.”

Dozens of shelters run by aid groups on the U.S. border with Mexico have welcomed large numbers of migrants, providing lifelines of support and relief to overwhelmed cities. They work closely with the Border Patrol to care for migrants released with notices to appear in immigration court, many of whom don't know where they are or how to find the nearest airport or bus station.

But Republican scrutiny of the shelters is intensifying, and President-elect Donald Trump's allies consider them a magnet for illegal immigration. Many are nonprofits that rely on federal funding, including $650 million under one program last year alone.

The incoming Trump administration has pledged to carry out an ambitious immigration agenda, including a campaign promise of mass deportations. The new White House's potential playbook includes using the National Guard to arrest migrants and installing buoy barriers on the waters between the U.S. and Mexico.

As part of that agenda, Trump's incoming border czar, Tom Homan, has vowed to review the role of nongovernmental organizations and whether they helped open “the doors to this humanitarian crisis.” Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who along with Elon Musk was tapped by Trump to find ways to cut federal spending, has signaled that the groups are in his sights and called them “a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

“Americans deserve transparency on opaque foreign aid & nonprofit groups abetting our own border crisis,” Ramaswamy said last month in a post on X.

The Trump administration did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The developments have alarmed immigration advocates and some officials in border communities, including Republicans, who say those communities can collapse without shelter space or a budget to pay for humanitarian costs.

Aid groups deny that they are aiding illegal immigration. They say they are responding to emergencies foisted on border towns and performing humanitarian work.

“The groundwork is being laid here in Texas for a larger assault on nonprofits that are just trying to protect people’s civil rights,” said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, an advocacy group.

For the past year, Texas has launched investigations into six organizations that provide shelter, food and travel advice to migrants. Courts have so far largely rebuffed the state's efforts, including rejecting a lawsuit to shut down El Paso's Annunciation House, but several cases remain on appeal.

The Texas Civil Rights Project, which represents two organizations being probed by the state, says it has trained more than 100 migrant aid organizations in the weeks since Trump’s reelection on how to respond if investigators come knocking.

The Texas investigations began after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott alleged in 2022, without evidence, that border nonprofits were encouraging illegal crossings and transporting migrants.

Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which operates a shelter in McAllen with capacity for 1,200 people, was notified by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in March that authorities wanted to interview the executive director, Sister Norma Pimentel, to investigate whether there were “practices for facilitating alien crossings over the Texas-Mexico border.”

Pimentel declined to comment to The Associated Press, citing the ongoing case, but attorneys representing her organization responded to the accusations in court calling them a "fishing expedition into a pond where no one has ever seen a fish.”

In downtown McAllen, a large lobby serves as a welcome center where families receive travel information while their children play with volunteers. This year, nearly 50,000 migrants have passed through the shelter. Personal belongings and sleeping mats are in a separate section sandwiched between the lobby and the kitchen.

The Sequeras, who stayed two weeks, fell into a regimen of waking at 6 a.m., clearing sleeping mats off the floor and having breakfast by 7 a.m. They performed other chores such as cleaning or doing laundry to keep the large shelter running.

Volunteer attorneys help migrants apply for work authorization. Without that help, Sequera said, the process would have taken longer to learn and cost them thousands of dollars before they would have been able to continue their journey north.

McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos is at odds with Paxton, a fellow Republican, over the Catholic Charities investigation. His city found room for about 140 migrants a day in 2024 — a dramatic drop from 2021, when a surge in crossings across the southern U.S. border that year put the shelter over maximum capacity and forced it to close for several days.

"They have served the purpose because the feds have not acted in what they have to do,” Villalobos said. “In McAllen, we would have been lost without them.”

Former McAllen Mayor Jim Darling still recalls the night he received a call from the city manager in 2014 explaining that the bus station was closing, but 25 migrants were still waiting for a bus. He asked Pimentel at Catholic Charities for help.

Hidalgo County authorities turned to Pimentel in 2021 when migrants were being released without testing for COVID-19. Catholic Charities conducted testing and quarantined those who tested positive.

The shelters have received help from U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who since 2019 has steered federal funding to them through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He beat back Republican opposition last year.

“Will they attack it again and try to eliminate it?" Cuellar said. "Yes.”