The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently sued the Trump administration, but Catholic Charities migrant problems have a bigger problem than funding freezes… there’s no one inside them.

Migrant shelters that helped nearly a thousand asylum seekers per day at the height of migrant crossings just a few years ago are now nearly empty.

The shelters mostly along the Texas-Mexico border reported a plunge in the number of people in their care since the Trump administration effectively closed the border to asylum seekers in January. Some expect to close by the end of the month.

McAllen officials reported an average of fewer than 12 people arriving at the respite center run by Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley this month and are on track to have fewer than 350 people in February. In January, the respite center received a total of 3,188 people.

Annunciation House, an El Paso-based migrant shelter network, has a total of about 40 people at the shelters, according to Ruben Garcia, director of the organization.

Because of the small number of people in their shelters, only four of the more than 20 facilities in their network are in operation. Garcia said he will likely close more by the end of the month, keeping only one or two open.

Another El Paso shelter, Casa del Sagrado Corazon, also saw fewer arrivals last year, prompting the closure of their shelter in September, according to Michael Debruhl, the shelter director.

A shelter in San Antonio, the Migrant Resource Center, stopped accepting new migrants last week due to low numbers.

Local residents terrorized by migrant shelters are happy to see them go away.

San Antonio’s Migrant Resource center is shutting down. The facility was run by Catholic Charities and has been operating off San Pedro since July 2022 through federal funding.

However, when it first opened, homeowners in the Shearer neighborhood located behind the center, say they had no warning.

“One day we saw a bus pull up and all these people were hanging out and we thought woah what’s going on?,” Homeowner Emiliano Vasquez said.

“A lot of the migrants would hang in front the businesses and the owners didn’t like that,” Vasquez said. “It didn’t look good.”

Catholic Charities leaders said they will continue helping migrants that come through San Antonio. While dozens of migrants remain at the center as of Monday, the majority of them have travel plans squared away.

“Most people are happy for it,” Vasquez said.

Amazing what happens when you actually police the border and send signals that you’re serious.

Last week, the new Border Patrol chief said that apprehensions in one seven-day period were down by 91 percent from the same time a year ago.

Border officials in Arizona said migrants had largely stopped surrendering en masse, with the hopes of claiming asylum or being released into the country. Instead, they said, a majority of those crossing illegally now try to avoid detection by threading through canyons and up treacherous mountain paths.

Make illegal migration illegal again.