McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — The 10th anniversary of the founding of the Humanitarian Respite Center in the South Texas border town of McAllen on Tuesday coincided with the day the Biden administration announced new rules that will further limit the number of migrants released north of the border.

A special Catholic Mass was held on Tuesday presided by Brownsville Diocese Bishop Daniel Flores to commemorate a decade of service helping migrants by the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which founded and oversees the Respite Center.

“The service of the Respite Center, especially for the immigrant community, is a world that graces those and aids those who need help,” Flores said during the service held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

The church, three blocks from Respite Center, was the first location for the center when it was hastily founded in 2014 by Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities RGV.

Since then, the center has moved three times until finding its current location, across from the busy downtown bus station.

It has assisted over 500,000 migrants and continues to do so, Pimentel told Border Report.

Tuesday’s event “was a very important way to show how our community comes together to make a difference. When we see something there’s a need in our community and we work together — from the law enforcement to the churches, to the people — everybody. We were just one community responding to the humanity, to the families that are suffering,” Pimentel said. “We saw them here at our own bus station. And we came together without reservations 100 percent, just being together to resolve what we saw before us.”

The center evolved after several community members called Sister Norma back in June 2014 to report they had noticed many migrant families wandering downtown and some sleeping on sidewalks near the bus station.

It was the beginning of a surge of asylum seekers that would put McAllen on a world map and at the epicenter of immigration issues for years to come.

Flores said that despite social, religious, political and other differences, the Rio Grande Valley community, as a whole, has supported the Humanitarian Respite Center through donations and kindness and tolerence.

“It worked out well, the help and cooperation of a lot of people, which to me is one of the most important signs in God’s work in all of this is. Because of a work of generosity is from God, it will invite others to be generous, whether they’re Catholic or not,” Flores said during his homily at the Mass.

He also joked that few can refrain or deny the requests of soft-spoken Sister Norma, who has become known worldwide.

Within days of noticing the migrants, she had convinced the diocese to allow them to stay at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Then she convinced the City of McAllen to loan cots, air conditioning units and tents.

Food and clothing donations then began pouring in from all over the country, and even the world.

Flores said that when he was in Rome at the Vatican in October, the pope asked where Brownsville was, upon reading his name tag. He said it is where Sister Norma lives. And the Pope lit up with recognition, he joked.

Sister Norma passed out pins that were blessed by Flores to those who helped start, and continue to fuel the center.

“We are recognizing what we did in these 10 years and hoping we can continue to move forward,” she said.

Javier Aguilera, 40, of El Salvador was among 150 asylum seekers being helped at the Humanitarian Respite Center on Tuesday.

He says without their assistance, like a hot meal and clothing, he wouldn’t make it to California where he hopes to find work in a factory.

“Thank God for this place and for these people,” he said.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.