As immigration enforcement efforts intensify across the U.S., one unassuming house on Sycamore Street in Iowa City has become a point of refuge and resistance.

Run by volunteers, the Iowa City Catholic Worker House lives out faith-based values of feeding the hungry and “welcoming strangers” by providing shelter, resources, and support to those in need — particularly members of the immigrant and refugee community.

The Catholic Worker Movement began in 1933 when founders Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin opened the first house of hospitality in New York City. Rooted in Catholic social teaching, the movement combines direct aid to people experiencing poverty with a commitment to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, and communal living as expressions of faith and social justice.

Clare Loussaert, a second-year student at the University of Iowa, said these values reflect the works of mercy taught in Catholicism.

“That’s a huge part of the Catholic faith,” Loussaert said. “I think sometimes people don’t always see that being lived out, but that’s the basis of the Catholic Worker Movement.”

Loussaert, who has volunteered at the Iowa City Catholic Worker House for the past five years, said each Catholic Worker House interprets the movement’s core values in its own way, reflecting the needs and character of its local community.

“Immigration made the most sense for us because one of our founders is a fluent Spanish speaker,” Loussaert said. “At the time they were getting the house up and going, there was a big need to support refugees in our community. So, that’s how that focus came. It came naturally.”

The Iowa City Catholic Worker House, in partnership with immigration advocacy group Escucha Mi Voz, provides housing to approximately 50 refugees, along with financial and legal aid and transportation support. The Sycamore Street House of Hospitality also offers essential services three days a week, including food, showers, laundry, toiletries, and clothing.

“All of our residents right now are refugees, mostly from Latin America,” Loussaert said.

For Maureen Vasile, a seven-year volunteer who works as the donation coordinator, the mission of the Iowa City Catholic Worker House is especially essential now, as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, activity has become more aggressive under the Trump administration.

“I’ve lived a lot of years, and I’m in shock right now, in total shock that all of this is actually happening,” Vasile said. “Catholic Worker really does a lot for many, many people — and that’s why I’m there. They don’t judge people, and that’s the beauty of it.”

Vasile said it pains her to see the way immigrants are characterized in the media and by politicians. The perception that they are criminals or looking to exploit social welfare, she said, differs vastly from her experience with the immigrants she has met while volunteering at the Catholic Worker House, people who leave their countries at great personal risk in hopes of building a safer life in the U.S.

RELATED: Iowa City Catholics respond to Pope Francis’s call to vote for “the lesser of two evils”

“One woman that I’ve known for quite some time came from Honduras. Her whole family saw her husband murdered in front of them because they could not come up with the money that the drug cartel wanted from them,” Vasile said. “People don’t know the stories. All they hear is what comes across the media.”

Citing Trump’s recent invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants — alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang — to a prison in El Salvador despite a judge’s ruling, Vasile emphasized that negative stereotypes of immigrants can have severe consequences.

“Who knows if they were [gang members] or not? Nobody even knew for sure,” Vasile said. “They were just foreign, so [ICE] just categorized them as these gang criminals.”

The Associated Press reported in a court filing after the deportations U.S. officials acknowledged many of the men now imprisoned in El Salvador had no criminal record.

While she described the actions of the Trump administration as shocking, Vasile emphasized immigrants often face harsh treatment from the immigration system even closer to home. She said she has seen it firsthand, accompanying many immigrants connected to the Iowa City Catholic Worker House who have been to ICE check-ins in Cedar Rapids.

“I’ve been to ICE quite a few times, and I’m just shocked at the way people are treated,” Vasile said.