“She lives her faith,” says U.S. Customs and Border Protection chief patrol agent Manuel Padilla Jr.

When a text arrives from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Sister Norma Pimentel knows it is time to dispatch her volunteers to the bus station two blocks away.

Another load of desperate people has been dropped off at the depot.

A few minutes later, those families are led through Sister Norma’s doorway.

Every day for four years, migrants have come here to the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley Humanitarian Respite Center — sometimes, only 10 or 20 of them; on other days, as many as 200. They are hungry, dirty, exhausted and bewildered.

The adults wear shoes stripped of their laces for fear of suicide in detention. They carry blue cardboard boxes holding chargers to power the electronic monitors on their ankles.

Babies and toddlers cling to their mothers, silently at first. Within an hour, most are squalling. But an hour after that, they are playing and laughing, tossing balls and watching Disney, children once again...READ MORE