By Sister Terry Saetta
Originally published in the Houston Chronicle. Published with permission.
Every day I talk with Texans who barely make ends meet.
They come into our community centers in the borderlands and ask for help to pay their rent and feed their families.
As a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, a Catholic religious order that has served the Lone Star State since 1875, I have never been so worried about our most vulnerable brothers and sisters.
I implore Texans to stand up for these individuals in the midterm elections.
Hunger is on the ballot. So is the lack of affordable housing and healthcare and the high cost of gasoline, utilities and property taxes. Whether data centers will wreak havoc on our state is also up for grabs.
Since Congress passed President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” about 600,000 people in Texas have lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, more than half of them children.
Directly connected to the affordability crisis is how the government spends taxpayer dollars to relentlessly persecute undocumented people in our state.
Texas is projected to lose $12.6 billion in federal funding for healthcare and food assistance by 2029. The lost funds will be redirected to supercharge an immigration crackdown by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that already boggles the mind.
As of July 2026, the Lone Star State had 139 ICE detention facilities, holding an average of more than 17,000 people each day, according to FWD.us, a policy organization. ICE has arrested more than 142,000 immigrants in Texas since the 2025 presidential inauguration. It’s the most by far of any state.
This is happening while nearly one in five Texas households struggle with hunger, noted U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, who represents a Houston-area district.
“It is a deliberate choice to take food and health care away from Texas families to bankroll [ICE’s] cruelty and lawlessness,” she said.
I see the dark fruits of this cruelty every day.
In my work with women and families in low-income colonias in the Rio Grande Valley, I see firsthand the fear of people without documents and those from mixed-status households.
Some of them have lived here for decades, picking cabbages, onions, carrots and other fresh produce for our nation’s grocery stores and kitchen tables. They deserve to come out of the shadows. Their anonymous work is critical to our economy and way of life.
Comforting traumatized children who fear they may never see their mother or father again is something I will never get used to.
I have watched with a heavy heart as legal protections for immigrant women fleeing domestic violence — once a valid reason to seek asylum in the United States — have all but disappeared.
And I grieve the loss of an era when religious sisters in Texas had friends at ICE and could call them. They have been replaced by hardened strangers lured by $50,000 signing bonuses.
I accompany struggling Texans because of the Gospel imperative in Matthew 25:50, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
My religious order’s mission propels me and the Sisters of Mercy I live and work with to empower women and families and build a community where all people can flourish. At a time when Texans face unprecedented economic and moral challenges, I urge our fellow citizens to vote with an informed conscience for candidates who will work for the common good.
And I beg for an end to the ugly political rhetoric and threats to the right to vote in our state and elsewhere. Any election reflects a society’s values. We must do better.
As Bishop Daniel E. Garcia of Austin pointed out recently, citizens have the right to “participate fully in public life” by voting, and policymakers must “safeguard voting rights and promote fair representation for all.”
In this consequential election, let’s remember the spirit of neighborliness and goodwill that has long been part of our culture. Let’s come together to create an inclusive community for all Texans.
Sister Theresa Saetta is a vocation minister and community volunteer in the Rio Grande Valley. She is a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, the largest order of Catholic religious women in the United States.