Josie Soehnge Cohen is a Ph.D. student in anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. Her research investigates religiously motivated refugee–migrant care practices and political interventions with an emphasis on the role of the Catholic Church — and religion more broadly — in shaping contemporary politics across local, national, and transnational scales.
Cohen received funding from the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good and the Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights to spend four weeks this past summer collecting data in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Her aim was to better understand 1) the role of the Catholic Church in mitigating refugee-migrant humanitarian issues caused by U.S. immigration policies of expulsion, 2) how this role is transforming U.S. asylum governance, and 3) how it is altering the relationship between Church and state actors responsible for immigration policy enforcement.
The results of this project are essential to Cohen’s broader dissertation project that seeks to better theorize the contemporary role of religious organizations in the public and in local governance, allowing us to imagine the structural constraints and conjunctural possibilities of asylum governance aided by faith-based organizations.
Cohen will also present her findings next month in Rome at Migration, a Pilgrimage of Hope, an international conference on migration, theological, and social studies to be held Oct. 21-23 at Pontifical Urbaniana University. The Klau Institute is one of the main co-sponsors of the conference.
Continue reading below for a firsthand account of what she observed this summer along the U.S.-Mexico border. Note: This is original research. Please cite appropriately if referencing these findings in any other work.
The Catholic Church’s Response to U.S. Immigration Policies of Expulsion and Strategic Neglect: Understanding Asylum Governance at the U.S.-Mexico Border
By Josie Soehnge Cohen
During my time in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, I was able to volunteer and conduct participant observations at the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas.
There have been huge changes since the last time I volunteered at the Respite Center in 2023. A Respite Center once full of refugee-migrant families is now totally empty. I got to document firsthand the immediate on-the-ground effects of the current Trump Administration’s immigration agenda. I helped clean, organize, and set up a pre-natal care area, establish a room with clothes for mothers and children, and cook three meals a day for the local houseless population. Because there were not refugee-migrant families living at the Respite Center (due to policy changes that occurred after I planned this field trip), the few remaining staff members and volunteers had more time to talk with me about the work of the Catholic Church in refugee-migrant care since 2014, how the Catholic Church interfaces with other actors, and how things have changed since the beginning of the current presidential administration in January of 2025.
I established a meaningful relationship with the director of immigration services for the Diocese of Brownsville. This diocese lines the southernmost tip of the U.S.-Mexico border. She has incredible relationships with people and groups involved in refugee-migrant humanitarian efforts as well as with local law enforcement and elected officials. She gave me a work space next to her office and helped connect me to many actors in law enforcement — both local police and lead actors for Customs and Border Protection.
We shared many meals, and she accompanied me to interviews with actors hesitant to talk to outsiders. I was able to conduct extremely illuminating and informative interviews with local clergy and law enforcement.
I took semi-structured field notes during participant observations and recorded and transcribed interviews. Major findings, or results, of this data collection project included:
- Families of refugee-migrants went from dozens of families, to eight people, to two people in a matter of weeks following major immigration policy changes of the current presidential administration.
- Many non-Catholic humanitarian groups have closed their doors. Catholic organizations are remaining open and using their facilities to do what they can, even though there are no longer refugee-migrants being released by Customs and Border Protection.
- Local law enforcement respects the humanitarian efforts of the Catholic Church in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Local law enforcement does not check for papers or participate in the deportation of undocumented persons for the sole reason of being undocumented. If an undocumented person is arrested and eventually deported, it is only because they were already being arrested for a serious violent crime, such as involvement in child or narco trafficking.
- Under the Biden Administration, local law enforcement no longer saw human stash houses (in which refugee-migrants were exploited in horrendous ways by coyotes). This is because refugee-migrants had a legal pathway into the U.S. and no longer needed to rely on organized criminal organizations to smuggle them into the U.S. Local law enforcement anticipates the return of stash houses with the end of asylum at the command of the Trump Administration.
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not even notifying local law enforcement before or after conducting raids to detain and deport undocumented persons.
- Local law enforcement is getting reports of “cazadores” or “hunters” who are regular civilian bounty hunters being paid $500 per head for grabbing and turning in people who they believe to be undocumented to Customs and Border Protection for deportation.
- Both the local Catholic Church and local law enforcement are willing to vet and care for refugee-migrants if they are able to enter the U.S. again. Together, the local Catholic Church and law enforcement express that they want refugee-migrants to be able to resume entrance into the U.S.
- Unaccompanied minors were previously staying an average of 30 days in the “youth shelters” or youth detention centers before being picked up by friends or family. Since the current administration made changes to the documents required for parents to pick up their children, children have been there for over 150 days with no hope of being reunited soon. Previously, parents could use documents from their origin country to pick up their children from the centers. Now, they need U.S.-issued documents that must be obtained in-person in government buildings. Because parents are afraid they will be detained and deported trying to get documents, they are denied the ability to reunite with their children. This is negatively affecting the children in detention centers for longer periods of time without certainty of reunification.
These findings, so crucial to my broader research agenda, were made possible by the generosity of the Klau Institute’s Graduate Migration Working Group Research Grant and the Franco Family Institute’s Annual Theme Agenda for 2025. These grants covered expenses for airfare, lodging, a rental car, recording and transcription technology, and child care — all of which were necessary for me to complete this data collection.
These grants provided the resources and encouragement necessary for a project that I believe is critical to understanding one of our most pressing social issues and how religious organizations are emerging as key actors in the public.
Visit the Klau Institute’s Grants & Fellowships page to see the variety of funding sources the institute has available for students and faculty researching civil and human rights topics.