Bishop Leads Mass Deportation Protest in El Paso at San Jacinto Plaza

(EL PASO, TEXAS) — Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso led a religious protest on March 24, 2026, against the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies, drawing hundreds to an evening march and vigil in downtown El Paso.

The event, titled “Aquí Estamos: March and Vigil to Stand with Migrants,” began at 6 p.m. at San Jacinto Plaza and moved half a mile to Sacred Heart Church, turning a public demonstration into a religious witness centered on solidarity with migrants.

Seitz, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, organized the gathering with Hope Border Institute, an El Paso-based immigrant advocacy nonprofit. Catholic prelates from the United States, Mexico, Canada, and the Vatican joined, giving the vigil an international church presence as immigration fears deepened along the border.

He framed the moment in stark moral terms. In an open letter on March 10 and a pastoral letter released before the event, Seitz described mass deportations as “untenable and immoral,” a “grave moral evil,” a “war on the poor,” and a “fundamental attack on the human community” and “Jesus’ vision of a fully reconciled humanity.”

Seitz also wrote of “palpable anxiety” in the community. He cited neighbors “snatched as they walk out of immigration court,” recent deaths at the Camp East Montana detention center on Fort Bliss, self-deportations by friends facing “immensely challenging conditions,” and policies closing borders to the vulnerable while denying protections for schools, hospitals, and places of worship.

At the vigil, Cardinal Fabio Baggio of Bassano del Grappa, Italy, undersecretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, spoke in Spanish and pointed to the toll of migration worldwide. “Thousands and thousands of brothers and sisters who, simply looking for a better future or refuge, lost their lives,” he said, referring to the 8,938 migrant deaths recorded in 2024 by the UN’s International Organization for Migration.

Other church leaders at the event included Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio, Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, Bishop Noël Simard of Valleyfield, Quebec, and El Paso Auxiliary Bishop Anthony C. Celino.

Their presence widened the meaning of the vigil beyond one border city. The gathering linked local concern in El Paso to a broader church argument that migrants deserve dignity, protection and legal pathways, and that governments carry a moral responsibility toward people in flight.

The atmosphere mixed prayer, protest and regional tradition. Organizers held the event in English and Spanish, and participants moved through a bilingual program shaped by praise music, religious dances and drumming.

Dancers honored Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Jude, and St. Patrick. Costumes and ritual elements reflected local Catholic Indigenous and Mexican-Spanish heritage, while handmade signs carried the moral language of the night, including “Jesus was an immigrant” and “Migration is a human right.”

That blend of worship and public dissent gave the march a distinct El Paso character. It also reflected why the event drew attention at this moment, as local migrant services and legal aid networks faced new strain.

Melissa M. Lopez, executive director of the Diocese of El Paso’s Estrella del Paso, said the federal government terminated a contract with Acacia Center for Justice on March 21. She said the decision would force unaccompanied migrant minors to navigate asylum court alone.

“The federal government has decided that children should go to court by themselves,” Lopez said.

The fallout reached her agency immediately. Estrella del Paso, formerly Migrant and Refugee Services, served nearly 30,000 children last year and lost 18 staff after the contract termination, making the policy shift more than a symbolic concern for Catholic leaders and immigrant advocates gathered Tuesday.

Those local disruptions formed part of a wider backdrop of fear over asylum procedures and possible mass deportation. For many at the vigil, the march through El Paso was both a statement of faith and a response to immediate changes affecting children, families and migrant support systems.

“Everything that is beautiful about this community on the border is under attack right now,” Corbett said, calling it a “dark moment.”

Dylan Corbett, executive director of Hope Border Institute, cast the moment in equally stark language. Ruben Garcia, founder of Annunciation House shelter, described pressure on migrant-serving groups as well. His network has hosted over 500,000 people from 40+ countries in nearly 50 years, and he pointed to FEMA letters demanding detailed service lists and sworn statements against smuggling suspicions.

Those remarks tied federal scrutiny of shelters and service providers to the anger and unease on display at the vigil. Speakers presented the gathering not simply as a protest against one policy, but as a defense of the social and religious institutions that have long shaped migrant ministry in this city.

Pope Francis also weighed on the debate in a letter to U.S. bishops. He called Trump’s “program of mass deportations” a “major crisis” that damages dignity and leaves families vulnerable, language that reinforced the moral framing used by Seitz and others in El Paso.

The date of the event carried church symbolism too. Seitz and Hope Border Institute held the march on the feast day of St. Óscar Romero, the martyred Salvadoran archbishop known for defending human rights.

Organizers wove that symbolism into the public messaging. Bishop Anthony C. Celino promoted the Compromiso El Paso 2025, or “El Paso Commitment 2025,” through QR codes bearing St. Romero’s image.

Those principles included human dignity, family, community safety via collaboration, prosperity, humane immigration policies, and heritage celebration. In practice, the QR codes turned the vigil’s moral themes into a public campaign rooted in the city’s own language and symbols.

Messages in the crowd kept returning to the same themes. Human dignity stood at the center, followed by family unity, migrant protection and the idea that immigration is a human right rather than a threat to be met only with enforcement.

“The Church stands with you in this hour of darkness,” he said to those fearing deportation.

Seitz closed the event with direct appeals to both migrants and officials. He then delivered a second message aimed at policymakers: “Stop the asylum ban. Stop the deportations.”

In his pastoral letter, Seitz also addressed immigration agents directly, saying no one is obligated to follow an immoral order and promising pastoral support as they navigate conscience. That appeal widened his challenge beyond elected officials to the people who carry out enforcement on the ground.

The route itself carried meaning in El Paso. San Jacinto Plaza, also known as Plaza de los Lagartos, is one of the city’s best-known civic gathering points, making it a natural place to launch a public act of witness.

From there, marchers moved to Sacred Heart Church, a site with its own history in migrant ministry. The church sheltered about 30,000 migrants from 2022-2024, giving the final destination weight that went beyond convenience or geography.

That half-mile walk tied downtown public space to one of the city’s best-known religious institutions. It linked civic protest with the church’s recent role in sheltering migrants at a time when border policy has reached into courtrooms, shelters and family life.

The turnout of bishops and cardinals from several countries added another layer. Their appearance signaled that what happened Tuesday in El Paso was not being treated inside the church as only a local dispute, but as part of a wider struggle over how nations respond to migrants and asylum seekers.

Still, the night remained grounded in local voices and local fears. The bilingual prayers, the drums, the devotions to Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Jude and St. Patrick, and the signs carried through San Jacinto Plaza made clear that the politics of immigration here run through neighborhoods, parishes and service agencies as much as through Washington.

For participants, the vigil answered a moment when legal aid had been cut, shelters were under pressure and families feared deportation. For Seitz, it was also a statement about what the church must do publicly when immigration enforcement reaches the people filling its pews.

As the march ended at Sacred Heart Church, the most resonant line of the night remained the one Seitz addressed to migrants living with that fear: “The Church stands with you in this hour of darkness.”