Over the past five years in The border between the United States and MexicoPastor Brian Strasberger went from serving throngs of asylum seekers in overcrowded shelters to… Celebrating Mass with detainees and deported immigrants.
But while border crossings have shrunk dramatically under President Donald Trump’s administration, Jesuit priest He said that his message remains centered on embodying the Christian message, “that God accompanies you on your journey.”
“And the journey, whether north or south, involves a lot of suffering,” Strasberger added. “We have faith that speaks to us in the midst of that suffering. We have a God who says, ‘I want to be one of you.'”
Based in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, Strasberger heads the Jesuit Del Camino Frontier Ministries, a triumvirate of Jesuits who administered the Mass and other sacraments Immigrants from both sides The US-Mexico border since 2021.
At the time, thousands of migrants were cramming into makeshift shelters daily before and after crossing the border in record numbers.
Nearly 2.5 million people crossed the border illegally or came in legally through a system designed for them Seeks humanitarian protection As of May 2023, when Joe Biden’s administration took over He ended COVID-19 restrictions on asylum, until January 2025, when Trump announced a National emergency at the border At the beginning of his second term.
Strasberger celebrated Mass in crowded shelters in McAllen, Texas, and across the Rio Grande in Reynosa, Mexico, where thousands slept in tents in temporary shelters and hundreds more waited outside for a chance to cross into the United States even as the Biden administration began imposing restrictions.
He was there, at a shelter run by Catholic nuns, the day after the Trump administration canceled everything Boundary designations The potential asylum seekers had applied through an application to enter the United States.
After celebrating Mass, he asked people how they were dealing with the news. Most said they felt devastated, terrified and deceived. But one woman raised her hand and said in Spanish: “The last thing to lose is hope.”
“Sandra,” Strasburg recalls, “is not putting her hope in a smartphone app or a presidential administration or a government. She is putting her hope in the Lord, and that hope does not disappoint, even in the midst of life’s desperate moments.” “If Sandra could say that, on that day and at that moment, how could I give up hope of my service here at the border?”
Strasburger said the 41-year-old priest’s journey to the priesthood and frontier ministry was a journey of grace more than planning.
Growing up in Colorado to Catholic parents, he dreamed of becoming a father, a math teacher and a basketball coach at a Jesuit high school like the one he attended. It was after college, while volunteering with… Augustinians — Among them he met the future Pope Leo XIV – He first considered a religious vocation, especially when he was serving AIDS victims in a nursing home in South Africa.
“I always thought that a religious vocation or the priesthood was like this cross that you carry because God tells you that you have to. He would say to me, ‘Sorry, Brian, you’re one of those people who has to become a priest,’” Strasberger said. “And you say, ‘Okay, my God.’” “I started thinking, ‘What if the priestly life wasn’t this heavy burden, but it was actually the path for me to be my best self?’” Strasberger said.
In 2011, he entered the Jesuit school and five years later, despite not knowing Spanish, was sent to Nicaragua for more than two years. Upon his return, newly bilingual, he spent the summer in Kino Frontiers Initiative In Nogales – the Arizona and Mexican cities on the other side of the fence.
This is where he found his calling, the perfect place for his ability to navigate a bilingual context and serve as a bridge. After ordination, his superior asked him to establish a Jesuit presence in the Rio Grande Valley, literally on the edge of the country, places where Pope Francis He urged the church to go.
“I couldn’t say yes fast enough,” Strasberger said, adding that the local bishop assigned him and another Jesuit a simple task. He said: Read the reality and then answer it. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do ever since. We very quickly identified the need for pastoral accompaniment of the migrant population.
with Ongoing immigration campaignStrasberger focused on celebrating regular Masses in two large detention centers in Texas as well as in shelters in Mexico.
One, in Matamoros, is run by Mexican authorities for people who have been deported — some after decades in the United States, like a woman with six children, all U.S. citizens, ages 19 to 6. She was arrested after 29 years in the country, just before Christmas in immigration court.
“I kept thinking, ‘Was it wrong for me to try to sort out my situation?’” she would say. “Like, ‘If I hadn’t gone to court that day, would I have celebrated Christmas with my six kids?'” Strasberger recalls. “This is something we face every day.”
Five years ago, William Cuellar was deported to his native Mexico, which he left when he was four years old. He is also now staying at a shelter in Matamoros, adjacent to Brownsville, Texas, to facilitate visits from his mother and adult children who remain in the United States.
He started attending Mass with Strasbourg six months ago and considers him more of a friend than a priest.
“When I met Father Brian, I thought, ‘Great, I can communicate in English with someone else,’” Cuellar said. “He gives me time to listen to me.”
Sister Carmen Ramírez, who runs the Casa del Migrante shelter in Reynosa with another Catholic nun, added that in addition to sacraments such as Mass, confession and baptism, it is the presence of comfort and hearing from Strasberger and other Jesuits that helps migrants the most.
“They bring hope to people,” Ramirez said. “These men, they carry the gospel, with an outlook of compassion and compassion.”
The shelter now hosts about two dozen people, mostly from Honduras and Mexico. When the Jesuits visit twice a week, another 50 families come for mass and activities focused on mothers and children, most of them from Haiti.
“Father Brian is a man who knows how to handle children,” Ramirez said. “I imagine Jesus when I see them running to hug him.” “His message is to listen, to sit and listen, to look people straight in the face, saying there is a God who loves them through this encounter.”
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