News from the Episcopal Church
Rio Grande bishop ‘insulted’ by Trump DHS letter implying migrant shelter may have broken laws
By David Paulsen
Posted Mar 17, 2025
[Episcopal News Service] The Trump administration, in its escalating crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration, has halted government funding for migrant shelters, including one operated by the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande’s Borderland Ministries, while suggesting without evidence that the diocese and other organizations sheltering migrants may have broken the law.
Rio Grande Bishop Michael Hunn, in an online video, expressed outrage at receiving a letter from the Department of Homeland Security informing the diocese it was halting the federal assistance to investigate potential wrongdoing. The diocese’s Borderland Ministries shelter at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church had temporarily housed up to 25 asylum-seekers at a time in cooperation with U.S. Customs and Border Protection under the previous administration.
“I’m insulted by the insinuation that we have been involved in anything illegal or immoral,” Hunn said in the March 14 video, posted to YouTube. “We in the Diocese of the Rio Grande have been practicing our constitutionally guaranteed faith. We are following Jesus Christ by welcoming the stranger and loving our neighbor, and we have done so in partnership with the federal government.”
Bishop Hunn Responds to Department of Homeland Security: Defending Our Border Ministry
Click image to view video
Other shelter operators participating in the federal grant program have received similar letters, according to the Associated Press. The letters demand that grant recipients provide the identities of the migrants they have assisted and sign a statement affirming they have not broken the law. The letters say all funding will be withheld until compliance with the new requirements.
Hunn, in a March 17 interview with Episcopal News Service, said the diocese is consulting with attorneys about the best way to respond. The information that the government is requesting about migrants should already be known to Customs and Border Protection, he said.
“They gave us that information” upon bringing migrants to the shelter, Hunn said. “It’s their information that they already have.” The request “doesn’t make sense,” he added, “unless they want to have a chilling effect on people doing this work.”
The Diocese of the Rio Grande’s shelter has not housed any migrants since December 2024, due to a sharp decline in border crossings and changes in policy under President Donald Trump, who returned to office in January. The shelter is part of a network of shelters in El Paso that have worked with Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, to respond to past surges in migrants claiming asylum and legally entering the country along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Under the Biden administration, placements at El Paso shelters were coordinated by an organization called Annunciation House based on information it received daily from Customs and Border Protection. The federal agency then arranged transportation for the migrants from detention facilities to community shelters like the one at St. Christopher’s. Asylum-seekers are legally allowed to remain in the United States while they wait for their cases to be heard.
The diocese’s Borderland Ministries has an agreement with St. Christopher’s to reimburse the congregation for using the space. The shelter’s work was initially funded entirely by donations from individuals and congregations. More recently, the Biden administration used federal funds to reimburse the El Paso shelters for some of their costs through Homeland Security’s Shelter and Services Program.
The Associated Press reported the program was awarded $641 million in the 2024 fiscal year to dozens of state and local governments across the country and to other organizations like the Diocese of the Rio Grande to help respond to the surge of migrants into the United States.
Unauthorized border crossings hit a record high in December 2023, according to the Associated Press, though the numbers dropped sharply after the Biden administration enacted new border restrictions.
Such reductions in migration have caused other Episcopal ministries to scale back their efforts. In January, the Diocese of West Texas decided to close its shelter, the Plaza de Paz Respite Center. “The decision was made following a months-long downward trend in migrant neighbor arrivals at the shelter,” the diocese said in a written statement to ENS. “In addition, the future of federal grants awarded to the diocese for the operation of the shelter remains uncertain, fueling concerns about the facility’s sustainability amid rising costs.”
“Though shelter operations will cease, it does not mean the end of the diocese’s Immigration + Refugee Ministries,” the diocese said. “The program will continue to provide training, calls to action, and serve as a resource for churches to respond faithfully to the needs of the immigrant community.”
Trump has issued a series of executive orders related to immigration since January 2025, including restrictions on the asylum process. He and other officials in his administration also have falsely claimed that disaster relief dollars had been diverted to migrants. The Shelter and Services Program was funded by Customs and Border Protection and facilitated, not funded, by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, according to Reuters.
The government’s March 11 letter to the Diocese of the Rio Grande is signed by Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s acting administrator. It raises what it says are “significant concerns” that federal funding “is going to entities engaged in or facilitating illegal activities.”
“The department is concerned that entities receiving payment under this program may be guilty of encouraging or inducing an alien to come, to enter or reside in the United States in violation of law; transporting or moving illegal aliens; harboring, concealing or shielding from detection illegal aliens; or applicable conspiracy, aiding or abetting, or attempt liability.”
None of that is true at the Borderland Ministries shelter, Hunn said. “Border Patrol and ICE would bring to us asylum-seekers who were legally present to be in the United State,” he said in his video. “We would care for them up to three days and then take them to the bus station or the airplane to get them to where they were going.”
Hunn estimated the diocese has offered temporary shelter to 1,700 of those migrants over the years. “We always checked the documentation to make sure that we were complying with the law,” he said, “and responding to the requests of Border Patrol and ICE to help with this work.”
“We are not a government agency and we never have been. The reason we’re doing this work is we are following the command of Jesus Christ. We are practicing our religion, which is guaranteed under the constitution of the United States. And we are doing what our faith commands of us, following Jesus Christ’s command that we welcome the stranger.”
– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.