Amid deportations, the clergy in the United States mobilizes in support of immigrants

From Detroit to California and Florida, Catholic priests and bishops in the United States are showing their solidarity with immigrants facing deportations.

While the bishops of Tennessee and Mons. Alberto Rojas de San Bernardino have recently granted the Sunday obligation for those who fear being arrested, other members of the Catholic clergy are participating in marches to support immigrants.

In Detroit, a priest took a particular initiative: he delivered a letter addressed to the US immigration and control service (ICE) of the United States.

Fr. David Buersmeyer, Ombudsman of the Archbishop’s office of Detroit, expressed his growing concerns about migratory operations in a letter addressed to the ICE local office and its director, Kevin Raycraft.

“In recent months, not only in Detroit, but throughout the country, we have seen that ICE personnel have become more confrontational and less transparent, which has generated more fear and chaos in many of our immigrant communities,” Buersmeyer told CNA – Ewtn News agency.

The priest is chaplain of the group Strangers No Longer (They are no longer strangers), a Catholic basis in Mistchigan who advocates the rights of immigrants. This week, the group organized a march of prayer to the ICE local office to deliver the letter, signed by Buersmeyer and Judith Brooks, president of the group’s board.

The Archbishop of Detroit, Mons. Edward Weisenburger, also participated in the march, which brought together several hundred people, including Catholic, religious priests, Protestant pastors and Jewish leaders, according to Buersmeyer.

The procession began with a prayer in the Most Holy Trinity Church – which the priest described as “lasting symbol” for immigrants and needy – and concluded in front of the ICE offices.

Although ICE staff refused to receive the letter at the door, the organizers gave it to a congressman and a senator who promised to send her to the agency director.

The letter expresses concern about the use of masks and the lack of visible identification by the ICE agents during their operations, urging the masks to prohibit and require identification. ICE is also urged not to act without a federal court order and coordinate with the Local Police.

In addition, he criticizes the separation of families when ICE arrests parents, leaving behind wives and children.

The National Security Department responded in a statement that “instead of separating families, ICE asks mothers if they want to be deported together with their children or if they prefer that the child is placed with another person designated by her.”

Although ICE did not accept the letter in person, Buersmeyer hopes that there is space for dialogue: “Our hope is that more people realize that current procedures lead too easily to inhuman, unfair and unnecessary actions.”

“That, in turn, can open the door to a dialogue on national policies that provide a fairer and less impulsive frame to treat immigration cases,” he added.

The issue of the use of masks and the identification of agents is being discussed in Mistchigan and other states. This week, the Attorney General of Mischigan and other general attorneys sent a letter to federal legislators to request that the use of masks by the ICE agents be prohibited.

At the same time, the National Security Department reported an increase in aggressions and leaks of personal data from ICE agents, showing concern for the “loaded” rhetoric in the media.

“As our city has an important ICE office, we wanted them to know that there are many community leaders who know closely the suffering of these new procedures, and that there are ways to respect the work that ICE must do without causing fear and working with greater humanity,” said Buersmeyer.

For him, the march was also an expression of “solidarity” and living the social doctrine of the Church: “We wanted to publicly express our support for these communities,” he explained.

In Los Angeles, a Catholic priest also sought to provide spiritual guidance in the midst of tension.

Fr. Brendan Busse, pastor of the Dolores Mission church, said that the increase in ICE activity has deeply affected his community.

In the mostly Hispanic neighborhood of Boyle Heights, people live with “anxiety” and face “difficult decisions,” Busse said.

“We have received calls in the parish such as: ‘Father, I’m not sure that our family feels safe attending Mass,” said Montse Alvarado, president of Ewtn News, in the program “Ewtn News In Depth.”

Busse participated on June 10 in a peaceful concentration in Grand Park in Los Angeles and in a procession even a federal building, accompanied by other religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Los Angeles, Mons. José Gomez, who has repeatedly requested a migratory reform.

“We walk between protesters and members of the National Guard at a very tense moment,” he recalled. “And we take a spirit of peace to that place.”

In San Bernardino, the diocese also faces similar challenges, which led the archbishop to dispense with the Mass those who are affected by the ICE activity.

John Andrews, spokesman for the diocese, reported that ICE has been admitted twice to parish properties, including the arrest of a parishioner in Montclair.

“A man who did gardening in the parish was arrested there and then transferred to a detention center in Texas,” Andrews told the “Ewtn News In-Dept” program.

In Florida, concern for the undocumented immigrants detention known as “Alcatraz del Caimán”, located in the Everglades. The state authorities have highlighted its remote location and the dangers of the surrounding fauna.

The Bishop of Venice, Mons. Frank Dewane, said this month that he is “unworthy of public and corrosive officials for the common good” to talk about threats of caimanes and dangerous animals in relation to immigrants detained there.

For his part, the archbishop of Miami, Mons. Thomas Wenski, expressed his “greatest concern” for the health and care of people arrested in that center.

“It is in a very isolated place, far from medical facilities. It is in a very hot swamp, on an asphalt track that makes it even hotter,” he explained.

The Prelate said that defenders are asking for “minimum standards”, and that “one of those standards should be access to pastoral care.”

He also denounced the difficulty of celebrating masses or providing spiritual accompaniment in the center, because the state and federal government “are fighting among them to see who has the responsibility.”

The archbishop insisted that public opinion must distinguish between illegal immigration and violent crimes: “the vast majority of these people,” he said, “they are here working on honest jobs, trying to make a living and build a future with hope for them and their families.”

Translated and adapted by ACI Press. Originally published in CNA.