San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller greets migrants at Centro de Bienvenida, the resource center run by Catholic Charities of San Antonio.
J. Antonio Fernandez holds fast to his conviction that Catholic Charities of San Antonio is doing "God's work" in serving those coming across the nation's southern border.
As the charity's president and CEO, he sees only grace in its efforts to provide comfort and aid to the newcomers even amid harsh rhetoric, especially toward those who are undocumented, from prominent political figures, threats of lawsuits by some Texas
officials, and rage from protesters who have shown up in the parking lot of Catholic Charities' reception center, hurling insults and sometimes rocks at the migrants and the staff members helping them.
"For us, it's our mandate as human beings, as Christians, as Catholics," Fernandez says. "We take that very seriously and it's a privilege to do it."
Services for all
Fernandez is himself an immigrant from Spain. He came to the United States for college, met his wife, started a career in social service work, and stayed. He has been in San Antonio since 2013, when he accepted the
invitation of Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller to move there and run the San Antonio Archdiocese's Catholic Charities. The two had become acquainted years earlier while both were serving the Chicago archdiocese, Garcia-Siller as an auxiliary bishop
and Fernandez as senior vice president of operations for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
In San Antonio, Fernandez oversees a sprawling organization that runs 50 programs. The services include after-school care and activities for children as well as foster grandparent and adopt-a-senior programs. The organization provides legal aid and tax
preparation assistance. It operates five shelters for various populations, including an orphanage and a home for expectant mothers. "We serve anyone who comes to our doors," Fernandez notes.
Among those coming through those doors are thousands of new arrivals to the United States who, after being processed by immigration officials, seek aid at its migrant resource center, Centro de Bienvenida.
This year, Fernandez says his organization is "in a good place" with about 700 people a week seeking assistance at Centro de Bienvenida, which translates
to Welcome Center. Through mid-October, the center had served 37,801 migrants in 2024.
In the two previous years, as the tide of migrants swelled, so did the flow to the center. One week, 8,000 newcomers passed through.
The demand for services back then prompted Catholic Charities to raise tents in the center's parking lot to accommodate the migrants. The organization also set up a security perimeter to thwart traffickers who might prey on the vulnerable new arrivals.
'Respect, love and dignity'
Even when it has been strained to meet the needs of the migrants known to have come from more than 50 countries, Fernandez says, Catholic Charities has stayed on mission. "The first thing that we do is
offer respect, love and dignity," he says.
Through financial and in-kind donations and federal support, the center provides a range of services. One is access to phones so newcomers can contact loved ones in the United States for help in getting resettled and family back home to say they made
it to Texas after what for some was a monthslong trudge through jungles and deserts.
A migrant family eats a meal at Centro de Bienvenida. The center also provides access to phones, clothes and other resources for new arrivals.
The center's staff also hand out clothing. Every person gets at least a new pair of underwear and a new pair of shoes with laces. Border security officials have a policy of confiscating shoelaces, making footwear already worn down by the newcomers' journeys
all the more useless.
The center also serves meals, with an emphasis on staples from the newcomers' homelands, such as chicken, rice, vegetables and coffee, something even the youngest travelers crave. Fernandez recalls one week last December when the center passed out 10,000
cups of coffee. "Because this is what you like, we are going to have coffee for you," he says. "And that is very, very important to us."
Reuniting, celebrating
Fernandez has some particularly vivid memories of migrant services that Catholic Charities of San Antonio has provided during his years at the helm. One is of being among the four contractors that helped reunite
migrant parents and children who had been separated at the border under a previous immigration policy. "It was one of the most beautiful things in my life," he recalls of that experience.
Another sharp memory is celebrating the survivor of a horrific human trafficking incident. The Guatemalan man had been among more than 60 people found packed into a sweltering tractor-trailer in June 2022. Fifty-three of the migrants died.
Homeland Security officials contacted Catholic Charities to help the man because once he was released from the hospital, he had COVID-19 and needed isolation before he could be united with relatives in San Francisco. Catholic Charities arranged for him
to stay in a hotel until he was no longer a contagion risk.
J. Antonio Fernandez, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of San Antonio, left, and San Antonio Mayor Robert Nirenberg, right, join Marvin, an immigrant from Guatemala, for his birthday celebration on July 4, 2022. Marvin survived a human
trafficking tragedy that left 53 other migrants dead.
When staffers found out that his stay coincided with his birthday on July 4, they threw him a party complete with his only requested foods: pizza and Coca-Cola. Among the attendees were the mayor and the archbishop of San Antonio.
"It was a great opportunity for us to celebrate someone who had gone through hell but came back," Fernandez says.
Over the years, Fernandez has seen the anger directed at migrants take a toll on his staff, prompting some of them to leave. He says he understands but is undaunted and has no plans to work anywhere expect for Catholic Charities.
"This is God's work at its best," he says.