Dignity, not mass deportation

December 16, 2024

In the wake of calls for mass deportation of immigrants from the United States beginning in January of 2025, the Episcopal Migration Caucus entreats The Episcopal Church to redouble efforts toward protection and justice for persons who have migrated to the United States seeking safety and freedom. We call upon every Episcopalian to stand up for Gospel values and oppose and prepare for the incoming U.S. administration’s planned mass deportations.

The Episcopal Migration Caucus, a new grassroots group of lay and ordained Episcopalians, feels deeply concerned about the devastating impacts mass detention and deportation will have on immigrant families and communities in The Episcopal Church and across the world. We implore all Episcopalians to take action now to prepare and protect immigrant families
and communities. We also invite all Episcopal communities and ministries to take part in the caucus’s Migration with Dignity Action Week in the season of Epiphany, starting Monday, January 20, and culminating in a Migration with Dignity Sunday on January 26 in parishes across the church (or observed another Sunday in Epiphany). Actions such as prayer vigils, protests at ICE/CBP offices and detention facilities, donation drives, educational events, and fundraisers are encouraged during the week of action and beyond. (Migration with Dignity Sunday liturgical resources and an MWD action toolkit are in development; email the caucus to receive materials when available.)

We believe that ALL Episcopal parishes, seminaries, and communities will be affected in some way by the sudden, sweeping removal of noncitizen immigrants. In recent years, the church has seen exponential growth in immigrant-based parishes and in dioceses in the Caribbean and Latin America. Noncitizens, both newly arrived and long-term residents, are essential to the fabric of our increasingly diverse church, serving as lay leaders, clergy, staff, seminarians, and seminary faculty. We know that Episcopalians work in law enforcement, the military, government, and prisons, and they face a greater risk of moral injury. We are concerned for all those who will be more vulnerable to harm, especially children in constant fear of separation from loved ones, deportation, or imprisonment.

Many caucus members, citizens and noncitizens alike, work directly with recently arrived immigrants in our Church’s provincial, diocesan, and parish ministries. We count many new arrivals as well as long-term noncitizen families as friends, neighbors, fellow parishioners, and beloved clergy and teachers. Based on announced policy plans and our lived experience of the previous Trump administration, we expect to soon see a marked increase in immigration detention, lives uprooted, families broken apart, and communities further traumatized.

Specifically, we anticipate:
● increased racial profiling and collusion between local police and ICE,
● workplace, neighborhood, and even church and school raids,
● “collateral” arrests (including those with legal permanent residency [green cards]),
● rounding up noncitizens using local police forces and National Guard troops,
● the resumption of family separation at the U.S./Mexico border and in the interior,
● increased deaths near the border and in detention facilities,
● removal of Temporary Protected Status (TPS),
● increased criminalization of dissent, protest, and humanitarian efforts, and
● the jailing of immigrants (including women, children, the elderly, and persons with
disabilities and infirmities) in private, for-profit detention centers, internment camps
and local jails.

These are horrendous and unacceptable actualities that deny the dignity and basic human and constitutional rights entitled to every person on U.S. soil, regardless of immigration status. The Episcopal Church, at all levels, must preemptively strengthen and expand webs of support for migrating and deported persons across the entire church, worldwide.

We suggest:

● deep listening to immigrants in every parish, ministry, and community, followed
swiftly by actions to support their expressed needs in ways that align with Migration
with Dignity principles, to which the church committed at the 81st General Convention,
● hosting or seeking out “know your rights” and community defender trainings,
● creating preparedness plans for churches, ministries, schools, seminaries, and
workplaces,
● forming collaborative alliances with other faith-based and secular groups working to
protect immigrants’ rights and dignity,
● educating congregations and organizing or participating in community events
designed to dispel myths and foster understanding,
● developing sanctuary ministries, as encouraged by General Convention resolution
2018-C009, or creating sanctuary spaces in church buildings (with legal counsel),
● creating or joining rapid response networks, such as one forming through the
Episcopal Migration Response Network,
● advocating for immigrant rights through The Episcopal Church’s Office of
Government Relations and by asking your representatives to support bills like the New
Way Forward Act,
● contributing funds to legal aid organizations, bond funds, Episcopal Migration
Ministries, advocacy groups, and legal defense funds for movement organizers and
protestors,
● strengthening ties between Episcopal dioceses in the U.S., dioceses in countries with
large immigrant populations in the U.S., and Anglican partners around the world,
● providing legal and material support for persons anticipating or experiencing
detention or deportation,
● offering pastoral care to all enmeshed in the immigration system, including
employees, and
● documenting and reporting human and constitutional rights violations.
Resources for many of these actions and links to church policies that support them can be found
on the Episcopal Migration Ministries and Office of Government Relations websites.
While we do not know for sure what will unfold in January and the coming years, we know that a
“wait and see” approach will unnecessarily imperil beloved children of God. Together, we can
take meaningful action now to save lives, keep families together, welcome newcomers, and build
resilient communities.

In this holy season of Advent, we urge Episcopalians to shine the light of hope in three ways: PRAY, ACT, and ADVOCATE. PRAY for all migrants now at great risk; ACT to support migrants in our churches and communities; and ADVOCATE among local, state, national, and international governments to stop mass deportation and treat all with dignity. And as Christmas and Epiphany approach, we summon all Christians to stand in solidarity with forced migrants in honor of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, who depended on the care and protection of neighbors in their perilous journey.

EPISCOPAL MIGRATION CAUCUS SIGNATORIES/
SIGNATORIOS DEL CÁUCUS EPISCOPAL SOBRE MIGRACIÓN
(Af iliations provided for identification purpose only)
(Las afiliaciones se proporcionan solo con fines de identificación)
The Rev. Hannah E. Atkins-Romero, Rector, Trinity Episcopal Church, Houston TX
Ruth Fran Board, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Maumee OH
The Rev. Leeann Culbreath, Episcopal Diocese of Georgia – Caucus Chair
The Rev. Anne Derse, Deacon, St. John’s Norwood Episcopal Church, Chevy Chase MD
Martin Dickinson, Episcopal Diocese of Washington – Caucus Steering Committee
The Rev. Sally Ethelston, Deacon, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Hyattsville MD
Nick Gordon, Seminarian, Episcopal Diocese of New York
Gale Hall, Oro Valley Episcopal Church of the Apostles, Oro Valley AZ
Silvia Huth, Episcopal Diocese of Michigan
Sarah Lawton, Senior Warden, St. John the Evangelist, San Francisco CA
Jack Lloyd, Episcopal Diocese of Chicago – Caucus Steering Committee
Richard MacMaster, Episcopal Diocese of Florida – Caucus Steering Committee
The Rev. Rex McKee, Deacon – Episcopal Church in Minnesota – Caucus Steering Committee
The Rev. Luz Cabrera Montes, Canon Missioner, Christ Church Cathedral, Houston TX
William Niedzwiecki, The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe
Phillip M. Palmer, All Saints Episcopal Church, Palo Alto CA
Diane Paulsell, Sanctuary Ministry volunteer, Washington National Cathedral
The Rev. Cristina Rathbone, Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
The Rev. Vidal Rivas, Priest in Charge, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Hyattsville MD
The Rev. Alyssa Stebbing, St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, Austin, TX
Christine Tibbetts, Episcopal Diocese of Georgia
The Rev. Michael Wallens, Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande TX
Linda Watson-Lorde, Episcopal Diocese of Long Island – Caucus Steering Committee
James H. Wiley, Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, Missoula MT