US Prayer, worship lift unaccompanied migrant teens in shelters

GOP stands firm on stopping $10B covid bill until Title 42 vote

Republicans doubled down on their demand to hold a vote on an amendment that would keep the Title 42 border restrictions in place as part of $10 billion covid funding bill.'No amendments, no bill,' GOP Senator Mitt Romney, the lead negotiator for Republicans, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — On all but three Sunday afternoons since last Easter, Bob Guerra — a Catholic deacon — has carefully packed his favorite crucifix, a Spanish-language Bible, hundreds of Communion wafers secured in Ziploc bags and other liturgical items into a plastic storage box.

© Provided by Associated Press Bob Guerra, a Catholic deacon, holds a crucifix he got to commemorate the visit of Pope Francis to the U.S.-Mexican border at his house in El Paso, Texas, on Sunday, April 3, 2022. Guerra takes the crucifix alongside other liturgical items to help clergy celebrate Mass for hundreds of teens held at a shelter on the Army's Fort Bliss base after crossing the border without parents or guardians. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell'Orto)

Then he lugs it a few miles to Fort Bliss, an Army base in the desert on the outskirts of El Paso, where he helps celebrate Mass for hundreds of migrant teens held at a vast tent shelter.

Repaired Texas synagogue reopens months after hostage crisis

COLLEYVILLE, Texas (AP) — In the three months since Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three of his congregants were held at gunpoint in their Texas synagogue, new carpet has been laid in the sanctuary, the walls have been repainted, the entry retiled and new doors installed. He said it has been healing to watch. “Each time I came back in, I got to see us moving forward," Cytron-Walker said. Congregation Beth Israel in the Fort Worth suburb of Colleyville will be rededicated on Friday, and members will celebrate Shabbat in their own building for the first time since the attack. After the 10-hour standoff on Jan.

That shelter and similar facilities across the southwest were set up by the Biden administration and its predecessors to deal with surges of minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without parents or guardians. For the faithful young people they hold, the clergy and volunteers who visit bring comfort and healing through the sacraments.

© Provided by Associated Press The Franklin Mountains loom over Fort Bliss, a vast military installation in the desert on the outskirts of El Paso where an emergency shelter houses teens who crossed the U.S.-Mexican border without parents or guardians, on Sunday, April 3, 2022. There and at similar facilities set up by the Biden and previous administrations along the southwestern border to deal with surges of unaccompanied minors, the sacraments celebrated by volunteer clergy bring comfort and healing to the youths. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell'Orto)

"They’re praying with such devotion you can see the tears rolling down their eyes,” Guerra says of the teens' acts of faith he witnesses every Sunday after they receive Communion and kneel before a little cross. On Easter Sunday, he plans to gift them their own miniature crosses and cookies baked by local nuns.

How Two Florida Teens Cooked Up the Best Brunch Idea Since Mimosas

This looks absolutely delicious!In 2020, Emily and Sophia Schroeder had just signed up for a senior internship class at their high school, allowing them to leave school early to get job experience in the real world. They had both worked at a local coffee shop and were keen to spend their time there, learning more about the business. But between COVID closures and a school schedule that didn’t mesh with the coffee shop’s hours, they had to devise a new plan.

© Provided by Associated Press Music minister Roland Guerrero plays the praise song "Montaña" on his guitar at his house in El Paso, Texas, on Sunday, April 3, 2022. For nearly all Sundays since last Easter, Guerrero has sung and played this and other sacred music at Masses celebrated at a shelter on nearby Fort Bliss Army base for unaccompanied minors who crossed the U.S.-Mexican border. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell'Orto)

Among the teens praying fervently at Fort Bliss during last year's unprecedented arrivals of unaccompanied children was Elena, then 15. She asked that she not be identified further because of the dangerous circumstances she fled in Guatemala.

Elena told The AP that for weeks she asked God to let her out of the shelter as soon as possible. Then, when other girls also being held grew “inconsolable,” she prayed they'd be released first. As the days went by, she started worrying God might be “bored” by her petitions, and prayed for forgiveness.

'16 Bullet Holes': 2 Teens Accused of Shooting at Vehicle, Killing Colo. Boys Aged 13 and 15

Kadin Dyer Blaschke, 19, and an unidentified 17-year-old boy are facing second-degree murder charges after allegedly shooting a vehicle filled with passengersTwo Colorado teens have been arrested and charged with murder after allegedly shooting and killing two boys and wounding four others, leaving 16 bullet holes in the vehicle the victims were traveling in, authorities said.

© Provided by Associated Press A crucifix commemorating the visit of Pope Francis to the U.S.-Mexican border and Communion wafers in Ziploc bags are seen at the house of Bob Guerra, a Catholic deacon, in El Paso, Texas, on Sunday, April 3, 2022. For all but three Sundays since last Easter, Guerra has taken them and other liturgical items to help volunteer clergy celebrate Mass for hundreds of teens held at a shelter on the Army's Fort Bliss base after crossing the border without parents or guardians. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell'Orto)

What sustained her for two months before her release was receiving the sacraments, including Communion distributed during a Mass celebrated by the Catholic bishop of El Paso, Mark Seitz.

© Provided by Associated Press Bob Guerra, a Catholic deacon, loads a storage box full of liturgical items outside his house in El Paso, Texas, as he and local priests get ready to drive to the Army's Fort Bliss base on Sunday, April 3, 2022. At a shelter there and at similar facilities set up by the Biden and previous administrations along the southwestern border to deal with surges of unaccompanied minors, the sacraments celebrated by volunteer clergy bring comfort and healing to the youths. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell'Orto)

“When he arrived, you could feel like a peace, something that comforts you, something that you need,” Elena recalled during this Holy Week, which she’s observing with relatives far from El Paso. “God was with us to endure so many days without family.”

Opinion: Outrage and fear about homelessness never seem to lead to the obvious choice

In the wake of high-profile murders and the attack on the homeless population, Deborah Padgett argues that further policing and the isolation of the homeless are simply reacting to the problem -- not solving it.We have been here before -- the horrific scene of a disheveled man experiencing homelessness suddenly attacking a stranger in New York City. Five homeless men in New York and Washington, DC, shot, two killed. Some corners of the media seized upon police descriptions of these incidents -- citing the intersection of homelessness, drug use and mental illness to craft morality tales of untethered madness and bedlam on city streets.

In the shelter, she was so grateful for Mass, which she used to attend with her mother in Guatemala, that she braided a friendship bracelet for Seitz, who wears several on his right wrist.

“They have this faith that if anything became stronger on their journey,” said Seitz of the hundreds of teens he has ministered to since last Easter at Fort Bliss.

On most Sundays, the Rev. Rafael García, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish located four blocks from the border in downtown El Paso, celebrates Mass there, as he has at different shelters for five years.

© Provided by Associated Press This April 2022 photo provided by Dominga Villegas shows the Rev. Jose de la Cruz Longoria (center, with eyeglasses), pastor at five Catholic parishes, with another priest, deacons and volunteers as they get ready to celebrate Palm Sunday Mass at a shelter for migrant teens in Pecos, Texas, on Sunday, April 10, 2022. There and at similar facilities set up by the Biden and previous administrations along the southwestern border to deal with surges of unaccompanied minors, the sacraments bring comfort and healing to the youths. (Dominga Villegas via AP)

“All of us that go, we find we are transformed ourselves,” says the Jesuit priest. “Not all come (to Mass), but those who do are people of very strong faith.”

Woman Dies Climbing Border Wall After Getting Stuck Upside Down

A Mexican woman died after she became trapped, dangling upside down in a harness, on the border wall into Arizona, officials say.The 32-year-old had been using a harness to navigate the wall, but her leg became caught up and police say she was left hanging while entangled in the straps.

Suddenly and often tragically detached from their countries and the families who raised them, “their only strength is prayer,” said the Rev. Jose de la Cruz Longoria, pastor at five Catholic parishes around Pecos, Texas, who ministers to teens at the shelter there. “That’s why the point is to show them at Mass that he’s a God who loves and forgives.”

In murmured prayers in Spanish and Indigenous languages at makeshift altars, kids in shelters — most of them 12- to 17-year-olds from Central America — ask God’s help for their lonely, uncertain journey and for loved ones they left behind.

“They pray for their friends lost on the way, and that their family members might accept and love them,” says Dominga Villegas, who helped organize Palm Sunday Mass, complete with palm fronds, for more than 200 teens at the Pecos shelter.

In growing numbers since 2014, hundreds of thousands of under-18 children have come alone to seek safety and a better life in the United States. Since October, the Border Patrol has encountered an average of more than 11,000 unaccompanied minors a month, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

Some have no family, but many are rejoining a parent or are sent to other family members in the United States to escape poverty and violence.

When unaccompanied minors are apprehended or turn themselves in to U.S. officials after crossing the border without authorization, they are sheltered in facilities managed by the Department of Health and Human Services until the government vets a family member or sponsor to ensure they can be safely released.

White House resumes flying migrant children after dark on charter flights

The Biden administration resumed its operations of flying unaccompanied migrant children to sponsors and relatives within the United States on Thursday night, ending a pause enacted last year amid public scrutiny of the policy. The children were flown out of El Paso, Texas, and transported to an airport north of New York City, where an unknown number of migrants boarded three buses, including one that traveled to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, according to the New York Post. Republicans criticized the decision as an insult to hard-working New Yorkers.

Under the past three U.S. administrations, especially when the number of minors crossing the border surges suddenly and emergency intake shelters like that at Fort Bliss are hastily arranged, controversies have erupted over the conditions and duration of the youths' stay at these facilities, where media access is tightly restricted.

© Provided by Associated Press Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso poses in his office in El Paso, Texas, on Monday, April 4, 2022. The friendship bracelets on his wrist were braided by girls housed at a shelter on nearby Fort Bliss Army base for unaccompanied minors who crossed the U.S.-Mexican border. The Catholic bishop has often celebrated Mass there and found striking witness of faith among the teens. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell'Orto)

While awaiting their release, many teens struggle with regrets and low self-esteem, faith leaders told The AP. They’re battered not only by the trauma they fled, but by the guilt they feel for fleeing, sometimes without saying goodbye to beloved relatives who raised them — and for having ended up in a place far different from their dreams, with no clear path ahead.

“They don’t have any taste yet for the end of the tunnel. They can’t allow themselves to feel that already this is a victory and a blessing from God,” says Lissa Jiménez, a psychologist who held a day-long spiritual retreat at the Pecos facility in March.

By the end of the ten-hour day, she saw them sit up straighter as she encouraged them to trust in “the identity that being children of God gives us, independently of race, of our situation.”

It’s the same message that priests bring through Mass and confession, even for youths who are not Catholic but approach them anyway because “they just want to talk,” said the Rev. Brian Strassburger, a Jesuit who ministers to shelter youths in Brownsville and celebrates Mass across the border at a migrant camp in Reynosa, Mexico.

“We try to give them comfort, assure them that God is with them. That their parents still love them,” he said.

Many of the teens who were active in their churches back home volunteer to read Scripture or chant psalms. Sacred music helps put others at ease, said Roland Guerrero, who has brought his guitar, mics and music sheets to Fort Bliss on all but a couple of Sundays for a year.

His efforts for social justice and migrant rights extend far beyond this ministry. Bishop Seitz, the Jesuit priests and many other faith leaders also provide shelter, food and advocacy on both sides of the border.

“I know what I’m doing is a Band-Aid,” said Guerrero of musical worship on a Sunday during Lent as he prepared to drive to the shelter. “That doesn’t denigrate it, because in faith there’s no way to know what’s going on inside an individual child.”

He compares it to planting seeds of hope — just as in “Montaña,” a favorite song of Catholic and Protestant shelter children. It's based on the Gospel verse that faith even as minuscule as a mustard seed is enough to move mountains.

“Esa montaña se moverá (this mountain will move),” Guerrero sings, strumming his vintage acoustic Gibson guitar. “I have them sway. Then they start dancing again.”

———

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.