From MN to Hou: Operation PARRIS’ National Ripple Effect

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Just before a Saturday evening worship service in Houston, Pastor Giovanni’s phone rang.

On the other end of the line was a pastor in Minnesota. His voice carried urgency.

Two men had been released from a nearby detention center and had nowhere to go. They needed a warm meal, a safe place to stay as they waited for help to arrive, getting them home to Minnesota.

“We changed our plans right away,” he said. “We said, ‘This is priority.’”

Within minutes, Pastor Giovanni and his wife, who pastor a young immigrant church, were driving to the detention center located just 20 minutes away. 

What they saw when they arrived would stay with them long after that night.

Outside in the cold

Pastor Giovanni didn’t know what to expect. All he knew was that a refugee, Mateo, from Central America would be waiting outside the detention center.. When he pulled up to the grey industrial-looking building surrounded by barbed wire, he found people standing outside in the rain, during the Texas freeze, dressed for conditions they were not prepared to face. He described the scene as marked by desperation and humiliation.

He and his wife had come for Mateo and another friend, but they could see there were others outside, too. Some appeared to be pleading for help. He still regrets that he could not do more in the moment.

“When I first saw them, I saw a mixture of feelings. Like a coin with two sides, one side of the coin was like they were seeing hope in my wife and me to get them out of the cold. But at the same time, I could see deep suffering, uncertainty and a glimpse of the humiliation that they went through. Mateo had the right paperwork and was lawfully present in the country. He was not apprehended because he did not have the legal paperwork.”

A door knock that changed everything

One week prior, Mateo thought he was stepping outside to handle a minor problem in the parking lot of his apartment complex in Minnesota. 

A man in plain clothes had knocked on his door. Mateo said the man told him there had been an accident just outside his home, someone had hit his car. The officer asked him to come out so they could “settle up.” He did. 

Within moments, four or five ICE officers detained him. 

Mateo, a refugee who arrived in the U.S. in December 2024 and attended a bilingual Christian church in the Minneapolis area, was told this was only a reinterview, which was still unprecedented. But no reinterview happened in Minnesota. In a matter of hours, he was on a plane to El Paso, Texas, and later transported by bus to Houston. 

Mateo’s church leaders scrambled to understand where he had gone, how to locate him and how to respond to something they never imagined could happen.

Pastor Milan Homola helps lead the bilingual ministry at the multicultural Christian congregation Mateo and his family regularly attend in the Minnesota area. Their church community is deeply connected to the refugee population there, declaring that the very vision of their church is a deep conviction in being “juntos” (together in Spanish), pursuing oneness in the body of Christ.

In early January, heightened ICE enforcement and detentions began hitting people connected to their church. Within a short period, multiple people were detained. Mateo was one of six taken from their church community. As he had refugee status, many assumed Mateo would just be questioned and quickly released. According to Pastor Milan, that distinction heightened the shock when he was flown across the country instead.

Pastor Milan describes that week as a blur: phone calls, affidavits, frantic coordination with refugee resettlement partners and a race to get legal help in place before distance and time made everything harder. 

This is a story that sits inside a wider pattern reported by multiple outlets on Operation PARRIS: refugees and other people with lawful status in Minnesota being detained and  moved out of state, often to Texas, which can make it harder for families and attorneys to locate them and respond quickly. These refugee families were admitted to the U.S. under the lawful authority of the Refugee Act of 1980. Before ever setting foot on American soil, they had to undergo one of the most rigorous vetting processes in the world.

Mateo’s experience reflects a reality many families faced, as reported by World Relief during the Stay Together campaign: Refugee families who were promised safety were suddenly at risk of detention, deportation and separation. U.S. federal immigration agents, some dressed in plain clothes, deceived refugees in Minnesota, falsely accusing them of failing to meet legal requirements and placing them in detention. A trusted partner on the ground reported that even children were among the dozens of refugees who had already been detained.

“All they had was a blue bracelet with their name”

Eight days later, Mateo was ejected onto the street in front of the detention center. He recounts how he and a group of roughly 10 to 12 people were told by the guards they were “going outside.” Then they were left on the street. It was so sudden that one man in the group didn’t even have his shoes on. 

Mateo asked, “What are we supposed to do?” The answer he heard was simple: “Find your way home.” 

Mateo and his friend had no documents in hand. No IDs. No clear instructions for where to go.

Only a bracelet with a name.

This shocked Pastor Giovanni when he met them. He asked Mateo for any paperwork he might have on him. He wanted to ensure Mateo and his friend had documentation in case they were stopped or worse, detained again. “I wanted to make sure they had something to prove that they had already been detained and released with the right to go back to their families and not run into any more issues with immigration. I couldn’t understand why they were not given their ID or passport or anything to identify them. To me, that was very shocking.”

Mateo’s passport, wallet and cash had been taken when he was detained in Minnesota and they had not been returned. With no identification or money to his name, Mateo was unsure what the next steps would look like.  

“They need hope and some sort of direction.” Pastor Giovanni said. 

Dignity is not optional

When Pastor Giovanni asked Mateo about their time inside detention, what he heard left a lasting mark.

Mateo described crowded conditions and deep humiliation, including limited privacy. He acknowledged that no one expects comfort in detention. But he also insisted on something Christians should never surrender: Every person is made in the image of God and deserves to be treated with dignity.

What struck him most was not only what they endured but also the reality that they were detained despite having legal permission to be in the United States.

“They need to be reminded that they are human,” Pastor Giovanni said.

So, after a warm meal, he and his wife took them to their Saturday night worship service.

When the church becomes shelter

Pastor Giovanni and his wife pastor a young immigrant church in Houston. Many members are immigrants or are children of immigrants. Their congregation understands what fear and uncertainty can do to a family.

When the two men arrived, the church welcomed them without interrogation.

No one asked for a backstory. No one questioned whether it was “safe” to help. People offered food, clothing and care. During worship, Pastor Giovanni looked over and saw tears.

It was the kind of moment that cuts through talking points and headlines without debating the crisis and stepping into the moment in conviction. A church doing what the church is called to do. In that small moment, strangers became neighbors. It was an embodiment of the same calling Mateo’s church back in Minnesota practices every week: juntos, together. Only this time, that sense of family stretched far beyond one congregation, reaching across state lines to remind two frightened men that they were not alone.

Getting Mateo home

Back in Minneapolis the night before, at 7 p.m., plans were made. By 5 a.m., Pastor Milan and another church leader were at the airport. They arrived in Houston midday, rented a car and drove straight to meet Mateo and Pastor Giovanni. 

Pastor Milan remembers stepping into the entryway of Pastor Giovanni’s home and seeing Mateo for the first time since he was taken. Pastor Milan describes an intense moment of connection and Mateo’s relief of finally seeing someone from home. 

Then came a decision. 

Mateo’s lawyer explained the risk: if he returned to Minnesota without his documents, he might not get them back easily. He could stay in Houston longer to try to recover paperwork, or he could go home. 

He chose his family. 

They left Houston in the afternoon and drove through the night, arriving in Minnesota around 9 a.m. Monday.  

The drive was mostly quiet. Not wanting to ask too many questions or press for details, Pastor Milan encouraged Mateo and his friend to rest. In an effort to bring some lightness into the trip, they stopped at one of the famous Texas Buc-ee’s, long enough to eat before resuming the journey.  

In the weeks that followed, Mateo moved through waves of fear, exhaustion and depression. It took weeks before he felt ready to pursue practical steps like leaving his home and getting into his own car again. He began reapplying for a driver’s license. He returned to work, but his life remained marked by uncertainty without key documents. 

And something else happened, too. In the midst of this, his faith deepened. According to Pastor Milan, Mateo was the first to stand up in front of their church and share his testimony on what happened to him weeks before in the detention center in Houston. When he spoke, he got on his knees and he described begging God for help and seeing God provide through the church. 

In a season of disruption and trauma, the bilingual church in Minnesota has continued to grow. Pastor Milan describes their identity with one word: “Juntos,” meaning, together in Spanish. 

Pastor Milan put it plainly: 

“This really is the vision of the church. We are ‘juntos.’ This is our family. If our family is attacked or separated, you do what you can to live out this gospel message.” 

Pastor Giovanni echoed the same conviction from another angle. He described immigrant pastoring as carrying many roles at once, counselor, interpreter, advocate, driver and shepherd. When the call came, he said, “You don’t have to think about it. If you’re Christian, the love of Christ compels you to move.” 

Why Stay Together mattered

The Stay Together campaign began in response to a painful reality: lawfully present refugee families, including children, faced detention and the threat of separation. What we saw in Minnesota was not an isolated incident. Last year, World Relief warned that plans to re-interview and re-review refugees who were already legally settled in the United States would destabilize families, undermine trust and place thousands at risk. 

The detentions that unfolded, like Mateo’s, reflect those concerns becoming reality.  It also highlighted the role of the church — positioned to respond, not only with compassion, but with tangible support.

Through Stay Together, World Relief and partners helped equip families facing extreme vulnerability with critical support such as:

• Immigration legal services
  
• Emergency rental and food support
  
• Psychosocial and trauma-informed care
  
• Advocacy to stop unjust enforcement
  

To give to Stay Together, you can visit worldrelief.org/staytogether

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