Sister Norma wanted to show Trump what it is like on the border. He didn't care to listen. [View all]

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Sister Norma wanted to show Trump what it is like on the border. He didn’t care to listen.

By Karen Tumulty
Columnist
January 11 at 6:57 PM

To Sister Norma Pimentel, it sounded like a golden opportunity to touch the heart of a president, to give him a firsthand account of the suffering she sees every day.

The night before President Trump’s Thursday visit to McAllen, Tex., Sister Norma, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, got a call from the Border Patrol, inviting her to join the president at a roundtable discussion.

It was understandable that she would be asked to be a part of anything that purports to be a serious, high-level discussion of immigration issues along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Sister Norma is something of a local hero, loved and respected for the respite center that she runs near the McAllen bus station, working with law enforcement and an army of volunteers to help hundreds of desperate migrants every day. These people are in this country legally, most of them wearing electronic ankle monitors, as they await a court hearing on their requests for asylum.

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Sister Norma showed up as she had been instructed to do, at 11 a.m. sharp. The president arrived two hours later.

But instead of having an opportunity to speak with him as she had expected, the nun found herself sitting silently near the front of a stage-managed event featuring politicians, law enforcement representatives, a rancher and two relatives of fallen officers.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sister-norma-wanted-to-show-trump-what-it-is-like-on-the-border-he-didnt-care-to-listen/2019/01/11/99fa6da8-15e1-11e9-803c-4ef28312c8b9_story.html