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Sr. Norma Pimentel, a longtime advocate for immigrants and refugees, serves as executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville, Texas. A religious sister of the Missionaries of Jesus, she has overseen the charitable arm of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, since 2008, providing those in need in the Rio Grande Valley with emergency food and shelter, housing assistance, clinical counseling and pregnancy care.

Pimentel chairs the local Emergency Food and Shelter Program that distributes federal funds to local agencies providing assistance to the area's poor. She also leads efforts in the community that respond to emergency needs and provide relief in times of disaster and crisis. She was instrumental in organizing local response to the 2014 surge of Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States, which also included helping to establish the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, which has since welcomed and assisted tens of thousands of souls seeking safety and refuge by providing newly arrived immigrants with food, clothing, water and a place to rest.

In 2015, Pope Francis personally thanked Pimentel for her work with immigrants in a virtual town hall meeting featured on ABC's "20/20." That same year she was named one of Our Sunday Visitor's 2015 Catholics of the Year and won a nomination for "Texan of the Year." She also received the 2015 Martin Luther King, Jr. "Keep the Dream Alive" award from Catholic Charities USA. In 2018, she received the University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics.