San Diego diocese’s shelter in Tijuana offers migrant women and children safety, stability

Empty beds at Comunidad de Luz in Tijuana, Mexico, a shelter for migrant women and children operated by the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego and nonprofit and ecumenical partners. Photo: Shireen Korkzan/ENS

[Episcopal News Service — Tijuana, Mexico] About 35 migrants, including 14 children, have received much-needed support and services here on the U.S.-Mexico border since the 2025 opening of Comunidad de Luz, a shelter for migrant women and children operated by the Diocese of San Diego and its nonprofit and ecumenical partners.

Episcopal News Service on April 14 joined some 20 attendees of this week’s Episcopal Communicators Conference in San Diego, California, to tour the shelter’s facilities in Tijuana and listen to residents share their stories. Many of the women and their children are fleeing violence, poverty and political and economic instability. ENS is withholding the residents’ last names because of their concerns for safety.

“My family and I arrived in Mexico four years ago, but unfortunately my husband left us not long after,” Evelyn, a migrant from Honduras who lives with her son and daughter at Comunidad de Luz, told ENS, speaking in Spanish. “My job working in the middle of the night was the only financial source I had to support my two children, and I didn’t have anyone – no family – to ask to help me take care of them while I worked. … Sometimes there was no food or water for my children. I was sad.” 

The Diocese of San Diego partnered with Via International, the Vida Joven Foundation, the Pacifica Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Anglican Diocese of Western Mexico to establish Comunidad de Luz – Spanish for “Community of Light.” Licensed by the Mexican government, the shelter can house up to 100 women and children, though it has not yet come close to reaching that capacity.

Eleven migrant women and children are now staying at the shelter, according to Robert Vivar, the Diocese of San Diego’s immigration missioner and interim executive director of Comunidad de Luz. Some of them were deported from the United States while others have settled in Tijuana while waiting to legally cross the border. For some, Tijuana is the final destination. The hope, Vivar told ENS, is for guests to stay for at least four months to a year so that they have time to be treated for physical and mental health issues and develop employable skills while they get back on their feet. 

“The goal of our mission is to provide the women different tools, workshops, mental health support and medical support so that they have the opportunity to support themselves through a dignified job and buy or rent their own apartment or home,” Vivar told ENS. “The goal is that by the time they leave here, they can continue as productive members of any community where they may see they want to live.”

Vivar and his wife travel back and forth between Tijuana and San Diego to run Comunidad de Luz.

Occasionally, the shelter functions as an emergency respite center for migrant women and children who need a few days to arrange transportation to their final destinations. Recently, a Mexican asylum-seeker living in Alaska and her sons were deported to Tijuana after she missed a court hearing. After learning about the family’s case from the Rev. Paige Blair-Hubert, rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Del Mar, California, Vivar located the family and brought them to Comunidad de Luz, where they stayed for a day before relocating to Jalisco, where they have family.

“This is one example of how we’ve determined that our mission is not only the long-term job training mission, but also sometimes we can be there to help people in the short term for many deportees and others who are in transition one way or another,” San Diego Bishop Susan Brown Snook told ENS in an in-person interview. “We’ve realized that there are people that we can help in a different way.”

The origins of Comunidad de Luz date to 2023, shortly after Vivar started working for the diocese. Vivar preached about migration challenges at Christ Episcopal Church in Coronado, the church home of Tony Ralphs. Ralphs’ wife, Pilar, who is a Mexican citizen, owns the fenced 13-acre property in Tijuana where the shelter now sits. The Ralphses were already operating a six-story orphanage, retreat center and chapel on the compound but had another two-story building that wasn’t being used. After hearing Vivar preach, Tony Ralphs offered to license the empty building for a new migrant shelter.

Samantha Hernandez, right, co-director of Comunidad de Luz in Tijuana, Mexico, gives an April 14 tour of the shelter, which houses migrant women and children. Comunidad de Luz is operated by the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego in southern California and nonprofit and ecumenical partners. Evelyn, center, who is from Honduras, will soon serve as the shelter’s live-in residential coordinator. Photo: Shireen Korkzan/ENS

The building received significant upgrades and additions, including an apartment for its resident coordinator, bathrooms, showers and a larger water heater. The first floor includes a large commercial kitchen, a dining room, a laundry room and a meeting space for group therapy and other needs. The second floor has three large dormitory-style rooms with bunk beds provided by the Mexican government.

In addition to basic necessities like food, clothing and hygiene products, Comunidad de Luz provides job training, physical and mental health services, nutrition and health education, language classes, child care, academic resources, transportation and spiritual care. Social workers are also available on site. Regular prayer services and pastoral care are offered at the shelter.

Josette, a migrant and mother from Haiti, has been attending the cooking classes since she arrived at Comunidad de Luz in January. After learning new cooking techniques, she developed her own variation of fried green plantain chips that she now packages and sells at an outdoor market in front of the shelter. The chips are popular and quickly sell out every day. The money Josette earns will help her and her daughter permanently settle into a new home when they are ready to leave Comunidad de Luz.

“The shelter has been a good place to be. I really want to thank the team because I feel really grateful for how they have helped me. I first felt like I stood out more at the shelter because of my dark skin and having to learn to speak Spanish, but everyone here has welcomed me,” Josette told the communicators in her native French. “I don’t work at the moment, so making and selling plantain snacks give me something to do while I look for a full-time job.”

Comunidad de Luz additionally has a gated outdoor space that includes a play area and the beginnings of a vegetable garden. The garden will be a part of the nutrition and children’s education programs. Child residents are enrolled in a nearby public school, with the shelter covering the cost of uniforms and school supplies. The shelter also has an indoor playroom and a children’s library.

Comunidad de Luz is open to pilgrimages during which visitors who stay at the shelter’s retreat center on site can share conversations and meals with residents, and pray together. During the pilgrimages, participants will learn about the realities of migration and community-led programs at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We hope people who go on a retreat to reflect on what they’ve learned and go home with a willingness to inspire others to support border ministries,” Vivar said.

The shelter’s mission, Vivar said, is ultimately to save lives.

“With this ministry, we have a chance to save lives by giving vulnerable migrant women and children the opportunity to live a dignified life,” Vivar said.

The shelter has been lifesaving for one of the unnamed shelter residents who spoke to the communicators. She fled the United States after suffering from homelessness, human trafficking and abuse. After her stalker found her even though she frequently moved to different cities and assumed a new identity through the U.S. Federal Witness Protection Program, she crossed the border to Tijuana and went to Comunidad de Luz on the recommendation of a local police officer.

“This is an amazing place. They are empowering women here, and I am so thankful. Here, I feel safe,” she told the communicators in English.

With saving lives, Vivar said, also comes hope.

Evelyn, initially feeling defeated, was planning to save the money she earned from her nighttime job to return to Honduras before she moved to Comunidad de Luz. Once settled, she quickly began to show natural leadership skills around the shelter. Vivar and fellow board members “saw a real fighting spirit in her,” and hired her to serve as the shelter’s live-in residential coordinator. She’s expected to begin her new full-time, salaried position later this month.

“I am grateful to have this place; Comunidad de Luz is a blessing,” Evelyn said. “Last January, I had plans to return home because I didn’t have money and my situation was difficult. Now I have this place and a job. I wasn’t expecting it, but now my children are happy. God put us in the right place.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.