Event: the Rio Grande Valley

It was just before dawn in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and the congregation were arriving for the Friday service at the tiny La Lomita Catholic Chapel. The whitewashed building, which has been here since the days of the American Civil War, rises from the surrounding scrub and sits about 200 yards from the Rio Grande river itself.As cars pulled up to the chapel, the sound of Father Roy Snipes' barking dogs signalled his arrival. He has been the priest here for almost half a century - and is known locally as the Cowboy Priest."I'm not sure why I picked that up, but it's nice," he said of the nickname.In truth, it is pretty obvious why. Snipes wears a Stetson in place of the more traditional priest's hat. And moments later, the chapel was filled by the sound of a Roy Rogers song - the singer and actor known as the King of the Cowboys.During the first Trump administration, Snipes resisted plans to seize the chapel's land to build the US president's border wall. Eight years on, at the early Friday service, he focused his short sermon on the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)."There's no good excuse to detain, incarcerate and deport poor, good folks who are our neighbours," Snipes told the congregation of about 30, mainly Hispanic worshippers.Texas accounted for roughly one-third of all ICE arrests nationwide in July 2026 - a larger share than any other state - according to government figures obtained by the Deportation Data Project."They said we're gonna seek out, capture, detain and deport the worst of the worst," Snipes said in his sermon. "Well, we're here on the border and the cartel is the worst-of-the-worst. So we thought, well, that's a good thing."But it turned out, you can hear almost every…