In response to changes in immigration law enforcement and the upsurge in ICE detentions and deportations, Dallas Area Interfaith (DAI) is developing a legal representation strategy for people in detention.

The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) leaders and others in their communities have been detained and deported while at work, after dropping their children off at school, and upon calling the police for help after experiencing domestic violence. In response, TMO organized more than 15 'Know Your Rights' workshops across Houston with 1,500 community members.

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The black, white and yellow yard signs blaring “No! Project Marvel” first appeared outside two houses in King William.

Then more cropped up in other neighborhoods farther from downtown…

The signs are part of a grassroots effort to derail the development of the city of San Antonio’s proposed downtown sports and entertainment district at Hemisfair, a multibillion-dollar undertaking that staff initially code-named Project Marvel…..

For more than a year, city staff discussed plans to transform downtown behind closed doors. They talked about building a new Spurs arena with franchise executives and required developers, consultants and Bexar County employees to sign nondisclosure agreements to talk about elements of Project Marvel....

No! Project Marvel is joining a much bigger and older organization in opposing Project Marvel.

COPS/Metro Alliance, a prominent interfaith community group, first came out against the district in December. It’s currently collecting signatures from voters who commit to rejecting any ballot measures that seek to use city or county dollars for the project. The organization’s leaders are knocking on doors and talking to parishioners at their 32 member churches and nonprofits.

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From KSAT:

“Many of our families are experiencing layoffs from their jobs. And families are being squeezed with cuts to SNAP and Medicaid. And here you are proposing a venue tax for yet another arena?" said Debra Garrett, a COPS/Metro leader with Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, who urged the county to spend money on raising county wages, affordable housing and infrastructure.

In the closing weeks of the 2025 legislative session, over 100 Texas IAF leaders mobilized once again to stop a corporate tax giveaway that would have slashed wages and cost Texas schools hundreds of millions in lost revenue.

After nearly three years of organizing, EPISO-Border Interfaith leaders from Bauman Rd celebrated a major victory Wednesday: the City of Socorro revised its “Arterial 1” proposal, renouncing its initial plan to build a major road through the heart of their neighborhood. The move would have impacted over 100 families and displaced dozens of longtime residents—many elderly and living on fixed incomes—who had spent decades building their homes.

Last Sunday, COPS/Metro packed St. Margaret Mary’s Catholic Church for its Accountability Session with 350 leaders and candidates for mayor and city council. The crowd represented over 28 institutions across San Antonio, including schools, interfaith congregations, non-profits, and community/neighborhood associations. 

COPS/Metro launched its Sign-Up, Take Charge campaign, pledging to sign up 50,000 registered voters in opposition of using tax dollars to finance Project Marvel, a multi-billion-dollar sports and entertainment district which has been planned almost entirely behind closed doors. Leaders committed to signing up 50,000 people in support of investing in people and local neighborhood infrastructure, and to delivering this constituency to the polls. 

“We are at a crossroads in our community,” said Fr. Dennis Schafer of Mission San Jose Parish. “San Antonio is the third poorest large city within the entire country.  Will we be a city, a community that seeks good for the people or wants to build playgrounds for the rich who do not live here?”

Pope Francis meeting with Rabbi Lyon. He and Bishop John Ogletree (photo below) are leaders with TMO and wrote this article.

[Originally published in Houston Chronicle]

Last year, Pope Francis met with a group of 15 or so Houston community organizers and leaders in his private residence. It was the third time he’d met with us, members of The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) of Houston and colleagues from the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation. This time, he counseled us not to lose the ability to laugh.

Pope Francis greets Silvia Camacho, a leader with San Juan Diego Catholic Church in Montana Vista, in a 2022 meeting at the Vatican. (Photo courtesy of Rabbi John Linder)

[Originally published in El Paso Matters]

Father Pablo Matta was just a young seminarian when he attended an El Paso Interreligious Sponsoring Organization (EPISO) meeting at Santa Lucia Catholic Church (now St. John Paul II) in 1985. At the meeting, local leaders were gearing up for a big fight – thousands of people in the colonias of El Paso had been sold parcels of land with the promise of utility services – water, sewer and gas – only to learn that they had been swindled by unscrupulous developers.