With chants of “with faith, without fear,” nearly 1,000 people marched through Downtown El Paso calling for an end to the Trump administration’s policies of mass deportation.
Hundreds from the Borderland joined an interfaith march and vigil in support of immigrants and against mass deportation on Tuesday, March 24. The march started at San Jacinto Plaza with protestors walking through Downtown. The Catholic Diocese of El Paso organized it in collaboration with groups like Hope Border Institute and Annunciation House in El Paso, as well as District 7 City Rep. Lily Limón.
“It is a gathering of people who are concerned about the way that our nation right now is treating immigrants in a very generalized way,” Bishop Mark Seitz said ahead of the march. “Speaking of whole groups as though they were criminals, that they were a threat. The church certainly has always been in agreement that we should look for criminals … but instead, right now, the kind of tactics that we’re using are not only criminalizing in the minds of people all who are immigrants, all who look different that what we imagine the typical American to look like, but also treating them very badly, we’re separating families, we are terrorizing them.”
The vigil and march come as El Paso has become a hub for mass detention and deportations as part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations. Seitz and others argued that the detention and deportation policies are an “attack on our welcoming identity at the border,” while Marissa Lopez of Estrella del Paso said that El Paso has become ICE’s “detention capital of the world.”
The Trump administration has transformed the Borderland into a mass detention network, including the massive Camp East Montana that opened in August 2025. Lopez said there are roughly 7,000 ICE detention beds in El Paso, but this could grow to 13,500 if the Trump administration opens three warehouses in Socorro, increasing capacity by 8,500 beds.
Many of those who joined the march were motivated to speak out against the violent tactics that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have used in their operations and in the detention of immigrants. Three U.S. citizens have been killed by agents, while 14 immigrants being held at detention centers have died since the start of the year, including two detainees held at El Paso’s Camp East Montana.
“We have seen a lot of violence against migrants,” María Calvillo, who is part of the Saint Mark Church, said. “We do not want violence, we do not want children crying, we do not want women crying; they shouldn’t be detained.”
Commemorating the feast of Saint Óscar Romero
The vigil and march came as the bishops commemorated the Feast of Saint Óscar Romero.
Romero was a Salvadoran Archbishop who spoke out on the need to help the poor and was killed by the government after he called on soldiers to cease killing civilians in 1979. He was made a saint by Pope Francis in October 2018.
The example Romero presented arose during Bishop Evelio Menjivar’s message, who is originally from El Salvador and traveled from Washington, D.C., to El Paso for the march.
“We need more Óscar Romeros; we need all people of goodwill to follow his example and demand that the government respect human dignity,”Menjivar said. “That is what we are asking, that the government respect life and human dignity, that it stops the campaign of fear in our communities, in our neighborhoods, in our cities, to stop the attack on immigrant (rights) advocates, stop indiscriminate mass deportation and mass incarceration and pass an immigration reform that respects and guarantees the dignity of all people.”
A “first-class” relic of Saint Oscar Romero was also present for veneration during the vigil.
Bishop Setiz speaks out against Trump’s campaign of mass deportation
Seitz has increasingly spoken out against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement.
The Bishop presented a special pastoral letter on March 15, decrying mass detention and deportation. He called these policies a “grave moral evil, one which must be opposed, with prayer, peaceful action and acts of solidarity with those affected.”
“Mass deportations will not make our communities safer,” Seitz wrote in his letter. “They separate families, divide neighbors and threaten our economic well-being. While we do need significant immigration reforms, it is an injustice to make families, children and the vulnerable pay the price of our inaction. Policies, laws and borders must always be at the service of human dignity, genuine community security and human flourishing.”
Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at:jdabbott@usatodayco.com; @palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso march protests ICE mass detention, deportation
Reporting by Jeff Abbott, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
