St. Joseph Catholic Church at 109 N. Meadow Ave., Laredo, TX 78040 US - They are not 'illegals' They are pepople, and I will feed them

After graduating from St. Mary High School, Nancy left home to join the Sisters of Charity and eventually earn a master’s degree. When she went to Colorado, she carried the lessons of her loving family wherever she went.

“In the 1980s, I was working as a clinical nurse specialist for my order, and Father Gallagher was our hospital chaplain,” Sister Nancy recalls. “I loved having Sunday dinners with him and other priests and nuns at Sacred Heart’s Parish House. The food and company were wonderful! The only problem was that Father Gallagher kept getting up from the table to answer knocks at his back door. He would disappear for a while and then return without any explanation.

“After a few times, I followed him to the rectory door to see what he was doing. An immigrant family stood there, hungry and poor, asking for help. Father went to his cupboard and closet to help them as best he could.

“He continued to do this for years, and the number of people kept growing. About 12 years ago, I decided he needed to be organized,” she laughs. “He couldn’t keep feeding them his own food! So I wrote a grant and got money to buy small amounts of nonperishable food, and I began helping on a regular basis.

“The immigrants and their families who came to him were desperately poor. They had nothing to eat or wear, and most didn’t speak a word of English. But, oh, did they work! They did jobs no American would do, though they didn’t earn enough to pay their rent or feed their children. And if they needed health care, they were completely on their own. When families got behind on their bills, they would bring us the legal documents they couldn’t read and ask us what to do.

“I continued to write grants and watch as the need grew until I knew I had to make a change. I left my work in neurosurgery and entered into full-time service to the poor immigrant population in the area.

“In 2000, we opened El Centro de Los Pobres (The Center for the Poor) on the grounds of Sacred Heart Parish. Many Americans might balk at the idea of coming to a center for “the poor,” but our families don’t. They know they’re poor! They earn very little working in the fields during growing season. In the winter, they earn even less at odd jobs or menial labor. But even from this, they send money home to the families they left behind. They’re grateful for the help and always ready to give back in any way they can.

“We do everything by word of mouth – no advertising because the people we serve are reviled by most of society. The Colorado Legislature has passed a number of laws to keep illegal immigrants out. But they trap our families in a cycle of poverty that never ends. For example, in our state you cannot get a driver’s license without a Social Security number. Of course, Social Security numbers are available only to American citizens and immigrants with official work papers, so most immigrants can no longer drive from farm to farm or state to state to pick crops.

“Though they can fix anything mechanical and keep their old cars running like tops, they must now stay in one place or risk being caught driving without a license and being imprisoned or shipped across the border like cattle. Many have begun to work their winter jobs all year round. But winter work varies and depends on the weather, so the poverty level rises exponentially.

“Yet they keep coming to the U.S. because they face even greater poverty at home. They’re leaving behind tarpaper shacks and hunger pains to follow the dreams they see on American TV shows. Many of our families tell me they wish they could take our running water or adequate plumbing back to their families at home. I know that’s true because we really work with our children, retraining them to put their used toilet paper in the toilet rather than throwing it away. They don’t flush it because their sewers at home get plugged by paper, so we always have big garbage cans in our restrooms.

“Under NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), only the rich benefit. Small farmers can’t compete when their countries are flooded with cheap American grain. Wealthy families own most factories and contract with international companies, so that local tradespeople are priced out of the market. Competition is no longer part of the equation, so the poor get poorer until all they have are their dreams.

“Through Los Pobres, we provide food, used clothing, some utility and legal assistance, as well as basic health services to more than 2,000 immigrant families in our area. Every week, we buy and distribute 1,000 pounds of pinto beans, 600 pounds of rice and 720 cans of vegetables like corn or tomatoes. Occasionally, we get wonderful donations, such as the semi-truckload of flour that had many bags broken, or the load of jalapeños I drove out in my truck today. These kinds of gifts help our families so much!

“We have an all-volunteer staff, with about five key local citizens working 30 to 35 hours a week. Plus, we have about 40 farm-worker families we rely on for regular help. Those who receive our help are those who give back. This kind of bottom-up organization helps us to always know the needs of those we serve.

“When we need labor, all we have to do is put out the word and we have all the help we need. The truckload of flour, for example, arrived on a frigid night – so cold we opened the center at 1 a.m. so the women and children wouldn’t freeze while the men unloaded the bags of flour. They worked all night, and by sunrise that huge truck was empty and the bags had all been distributed.

“So often we consider generosity a luxury of the rich, and we see ourselves through a lens of poverty. But the families of Los Pobres, who really know poverty, look at the common good. They recognize that by giving generously they become richer. Christianity is built on this truth.

“As humans, once we become rich and powerful, we want to protect our wealth and power and not give it up. So we build walls and pass laws that dehumanize those who have less and punish them for dreaming of having more. Yet our faith impels us to recognize we are one human family and that our home stretches beyond our houses or even our borders.

“The families of Los Pobres, Father Gallagher and my parents taught me that, in its purest sense, charity simply means love. True charity is love for ourselves that calls us to invest generously in ourselves and recognize that what is best for us is also best for our brothers and sisters. Their example invites me to reach out to my human family with the same love and care I would want for myself. That makes me richer than I could have ever imagined.”

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What does the church say?

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has called for comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. The bishops remind all of us of the Gospel mandate to welcome the stranger among us. They expressed their opinion that the immigration system is morally unacceptable because it accepts the labor and taxes of millions of workers without offering them the protection of law. Specifically, “this must include a workable and viable path to citizenship for the undocumented, a temporary worker program which protects the rights of all workers, family reunification, and enforcement measures which are humane.”