Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso stood in an ornate hall of the Vatican waiting for Pope Leo XIV to emerge from a door, alongside 10 other people from El Paso.

Everyone who was there with Seitz, including representatives from El Paso-based Hope Border Institute and La Mujer Obera, carried letters from immigrants to the United States who feared the Trump administration's expanding crackdown on immigrants.

The letters expressed fear of leaving the house to go to work and expressed fear from qualified asylum seekers of their loved ones being returned to their home countries.

“They can’t go out," one letter from a Guatemalan woman named María who had qualified for asylum and currently lives in San Francisco read, speaking of her family members who do not have legal immigration d

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