That’s why Cindy Ziemke, a Republican state lawmaker who owns the Brau Haus restaurant in Oldenburg, thinks the system is broken. Over a basket of peppery fried chicken and fried sauerkraut balls, she explained that she believes anyone who wants to come to the United States legally should be able to do so. She thinks anyone crossing the border illegally was most likely tricked and “horribly abused” by people they paid to guide them. But she also thinks something needs to change. In particular, she wants to stop the flow of drugs coming into the country. Her two sons are recovering heroin addicts and now help others who are struggling with addiction.

At the convent, the nuns are also quite clear in their belief that something needs to change.

“How can people not see other people as human beings and treat them with dignity?” said Sister Noella Poinsette, sitting in a convent meeting hall Sunday evening.

Sister Kistner, sitting nearby, just shook her head. “The disconnect doesn’t make sense,” she said. “American history just keeps repeating itself.”

They were among a small group of nuns who in May decided to go to the Mexican border to see if they could help.

The women traveled to Laredo, Tex., where they worked 10-hour days, to the sound of thwapping helicopter blades overhead and border patrol cars speeding by, in a facility that offered clothing to Central American families who had been just released from detention after illegally crossing the border. Sister Poinsette saved one purple and one green shoestring from the trip to wear as a reminder to pray for the people she met.

Marge Wissman, another of the nuns who went to the border, said she recently came across her father’s citizenship papers when cleaning a relative’s home. She read over the paperwork and quickly did the math in her head. Her father had bought a house and had four children in the United States before the date that he became a citizen, according to the form.

She couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though her father lived in America for years as an undocumented immigrant.