Texas Priest Continues Border Ministry Despite Changing Immigration Policies

A Jesuit priest in the Rio Grande Valley has adapted his ministry to serve migrants and deportees as border conditions shift under different presidential administrations. Rev. Brian Strassburger leads religious services at detention centers and shelters on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, providing spiritual support to those facing uncertain futures.

For half a decade along the U.S.-Mexico border, Rev. Brian Strassburger has witnessed dramatic shifts in his ministry — from conducting religious services for packed asylum-seeker shelters to now offering Mass to detained and deported migrants.

Despite significant decreases in border crossings during President Donald Trump’s current term, the Jesuit priest maintains his calling centers on sharing the Christian belief “that God is accompanying you on your journey.”

“And the journey, whether it’s northbound or southbound, involves a lot of suffering,” Strassburger added. “We have a faith that speaks to us amid that suffering. We have a God who says, ‘I want to be one of you.'”

Working from Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, Strassburger leads Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries, where three Jesuits have delivered Mass and religious sacraments to migrants across both sides of the U.S.-Mexican frontier since 2021.

During that earlier period, thousands of migrants filled basic shelters each day before and after making border crossings that reached unprecedented levels.

Statistics show almost 2.5 million individuals either crossed illegally or entered legally through humanitarian protection systems between May 2023, when Joe Biden’s administration lifted COVID-19 asylum restrictions, and January 2025, when Trump announced a border national emergency beginning his second presidency.

Strassburger conducted Mass in crowded McAllen, Texas shelters and across the Rio Grande in Reynosa, Mexico, where thousands lived in temporary tent facilities while hundreds more waited outside hoping to enter the United States, even as the Biden administration began implementing new restrictions.

He ministered at a Catholic nun-operated shelter the day following the Trump administration’s cancellation of all border appointments that prospective asylum-seekers had scheduled through a mobile application to gain U.S. entry.

Following Mass, he inquired how people were handling the announcement. Most expressed feelings of devastation, fear and betrayal. However, one woman stood and declared in Spanish, “The last thing we lose is hope.”

“Sandra, she doesn’t place her hope in a smartphone app or in a presidential administration or in a government. She puts her hope in the Lord, and that is a hope that doesn’t disappoint, even in the midst of the despairing moments of life,” Strassburger recalled. “If Sandra can say that, in that day and in that moment, how can I lose hope in my own ministry here on the border?”

The 41-year-old clergyman describes his path to priesthood and border work as driven more by divine guidance than deliberate planning.

Growing up in Colorado with Catholic parents, he envisioned becoming a father, mathematics instructor and basketball coach at a Jesuit high school similar to his alma mater. During post-college volunteer work with Augustinians — where he encountered the future Pope Leo XIV — he first contemplated religious calling, particularly while caring for AIDS patients at a South African hospice.

“I’d always thought a religious vocation or a priesthood was like this cross that you bear because God tells you you have to. He’s like, ‘Sorry, Brian, you’re one of those ones who has to be a priest.’ And you’re like, ‘OK, God,'” Strassburger said. “I started to think, what if the life of priesthood isn’t this great burden, but actually the way for me to be my best self?”

He joined the Jesuit novitiate in 2011, and five years later, despite lacking Spanish language skills, was assigned to Nicaragua for over two years. Returning as a bilingual speaker, he spent a summer at the Kino Border Initiative serving both Nogales communities — the Arizona and Mexico cities separated by border fencing.

There he discovered his calling, finding the perfect environment for his bilingual capabilities and role as a cultural bridge. Following ordination, his supervisor requested he establish Jesuit operations in the Rio Grande Valley, literally at the nation’s edges where Pope Francis had encouraged church outreach.

“I couldn’t have said yes fast enough,” Strassburger said, adding that the local bishop then assigned him and another Jesuit a simple mission. “He said, ‘Read the reality and respond to it.’ And that’s what we’ve been trying to do since then. And we identified very quickly the need for pastoral accompaniment of the migrant population.”

With current immigration enforcement intensifying, Strassburger has concentrated on conducting regular Mass at two major Texas detention facilities and Mexican shelters.

One facility in Matamoros serves people deported by Mexican officials — including individuals who lived in the United States for decades, such as a mother of six U.S. citizen children ages 6 to 19. Authorities arrested her after 29 years in America, just before Christmas during a routine immigration court appearance.

“She’s like, ‘I just keep thinking, was it a mistake for me to even try to regularize my status? Like, if I had not gone to court that day, would I be celebrating Christmas with my six kids?'” Strassburger recalled. “That’s the kind of thing we encounter every day.”

William Cuellar was sent back to Mexico five years ago after leaving his birth country at age 4. He currently lives in a Matamoros shelter, which borders Brownsville, Texas, allowing visits from his mother and adult children still in the United States.

He began attending Strassburger’s services six months ago and views him more as a friend than clergy.

“When I met Father Brian, I was like, ‘Cool, I can communicate in English with someone else,'” Cuellar said. “He provides me with the time to hear me out.”

Beyond religious sacraments including Mass, confession and baptisms, Strassburger and fellow Jesuits provide crucial consoling and listening support that helps migrants most, according to Sister Carmen Ramírez, who operates Casa del Migrante shelter in Reynosa with another Catholic nun.

“They bring hope to people,” Ramírez said. “These men, they bring the Gospel, a glance of empathy, of compassion.”

The facility currently houses approximately two dozen residents primarily from Honduras and Mexico. During twice-weekly Jesuit visits, another 50 families attend Mass and participate in mother-and-children focused activities, mostly Haitian families.

“Father Brian is a man who knows how to relate to children. I imagine Jesus when I see them running to hug him,” Ramírez said. “His apostolate is of listening, of sitting down to listen, looking at people straight in the face, saying that there is a God who loves them through this encounter.”