Biography
Catholic religious sister from Indiana volunteering with the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas. Arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol on February 17, 1984 near Guerra, Texas while transporting Salvadoran refugees in a diocesan vehicle (Stacey Lynn Merkt was a passenger and was charged separately). A co-defendant in early Sanctuary Movement Texas prosecutions, but the federal government dropped the principal smuggling charge in exchange for her testimony, granting her a one-year deferred adjudication. Her case is significant as one of the first Sanctuary-related arrests of a Catholic sister and helped catalyze the Tucson and Brownsville prosecutions that followed.
