Arizona church claims it’s been denied the opportunity to provide meals to immigrants after twenty years

Officials at an Arizona church in the border town of San Luis say they have been barred by the city from feeding immigrants and others in need, a practice at the church for nearly 25 years. 

Gethsemani Baptist Church, located a five-minute drive from the Arizona-Mexico border, made it its mission to serve food to anyone who needed it. Now the church has filed a federal lawsuit against the city for alleged hostility toward the church’s food ministry. 

“The food ministry is the way that our church use to help people and share the gospel and the love of God,” Jose Manuel Castro, the church’s pastor, told NPR.

The suit stated that starting in 2022, the city grew hostile toward the church, citing zoning violations. The church uses a semitruck to load and unload food, which the city said violates the law. The lawsuit also said the city improperly interpreted the church’s food distribution work as commercial activity in a noncommercial zone.

“Pastor Castro has been loading and unloading semi-trucks of food on the Church’s property at 1010 B Street almost every day for nearly 20 years—a fact which the City was not only aware of, but actively supported,” the lawsuit said.

Castro faces a $4,000 fine, but if the pastor continues to distribute food and receives another misdemeanor, that could punish the pastor with up to six months in prison and another fine.

“Although the Church disclaimed that any of its operations were currently illegal, and committed to rectifying any potential issues moving forward, Defendants refused to even discuss a solution that would allow the ministry to continue,” the lawsuit stated.

The church tried to move the semitruck offloading site 1 mile away from the church but still faced pushback from city officials. The lawsuit points to one incident with a miscommunication where the truck was supposed to offload. 

“The semi-truck driver was supposed to deliver supplies to another location, away from the Church, but he showed up at the Church instead,” the lawsuit said. “Pastor Castro immediately ran outside and asked the driver to take the truck away. Although the truck was parked for only 5 minutes at most, that was enough for Defendants.”

Castro is originally from Mexico and immigrated to the United States to start a Spanish-speaking church in San Luis. He said the church began its donations in 1999 after a woman with 500 pounds of food on her way to Mexico was denied entry. She dropped off the large amount of nonperishable food to the church, thus beginning the two-decade run of donating food to the community. Castro said he donates food to anyone in need, including immigrants crossing the southern border.

“We are the first person to give the first meal, the first bottle of water,” Castro said.

Border crossings into Yuma County, where San Luis is located, fluctuate throughout the years. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the area where San Luis is located encountered immigrants over 174,000 times in fiscal 2023. The previous year saw 310,000 encounters with immigrants. In 2024, there have been 27,000 encounters so far. 

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Castro said he gets asked daily by community members when the food ministry will reopen. 

“I just hope and I pray and I wait for the city of San Luis to change their mind,” he said.