The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Burlington, Massachusetts. Photo: Google Maps

[Episcopal News Service] The ecumenical Christmas Eve service the Rev. Dave Woesnner is organizing for the Massachusetts Council of Churches will include the liturgical elements one could expect – choirs, carols, prayers and the reading of the story of Jesus’ birth – but the setting makes it far from ordinary.

The service will take place outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Burlington, Massachusetts, in the greater Boston area. It is an opportunity to stand in solidarity with the people being held inside the facility and, if the number attending is large enough, to provide a message of hope, in different languages, that detainees can hear through the walls, Woessner, an Episcopal priest who serves as the council’s congregational coordinator, told Episcopal News Service.

But he is clear that the service is just that – a church service involving Christians “of all stripes,” since the Council of Churches includes 18 denominations.

“It isn’t a protest,” Woessner said. “It isn’t theatre or a demonstration.”

There have been plenty of those outside the facility, though, as the group Bearing Witness @ ICE has organized 34 straight weeks of Wednesday protests, which can draw more than 600 people from Massachusetts and other parts of New England, Woessner said.

The reason for both the service and the protests stems from the fact that the Burlington ICE facility isn’t equipped to serve as a detention center, he said. It was built as a field office, and in fact is housed in a nondescript building in an office park next to the Burlington Mall.

What had been a field office where people would apply for protected status or green cards has been turned this year into a place from which teams of ICE agents set out on raids and where people are being detained in terrible conditions, he said.

Rooms that served as offices now hold up to 20 men in spaces so small they can’t lie down. “There is one communal toilet in the middle of the room,” Woessner said, “and not enough food.” The spaces where women are held are even smaller, he added. Some people are held in the facility for weeks, with many of detainees caught up in ICE raids of the area.

“I work with teachers, who tell about students with no home to go to after their parents have been detained. Mom and/or dad has been taken, leaving kids with no food.”

As a part of his job with the Massachusetts Council of Churches, Woessner sometimes accompanies people as they report to the facility, although clergy are prohibited from entering the building. The council would like to be able to provide more pastoral services for those detained.

It is that same Christian ministry that is driving the Christmas Eve service, Woessner said. “For those people being held, the service hopes to tell them that they are not alone, and that God does see them and remembers them.”

The story of Mary and Joseph being turned away as they searched for a place where Jesus could be born continues to echo today, he added. “They were told there was no room for them in the inn, and for those being detained, they are being told there is no room for them in America.”

All are welcome at the Dec. 24 service, which begins at 10 a.m. and will last about an hour. Woessner said that while the setting is unique, for those who worship in most Protestant churches, the service will feel familiar, much like a version of Evensong or Lessons and Carols.

Of course, the service – like so many others taking place on Christmas Eve – will be centered on the Gospel account of Jesus’ birth, which Woessner said has the power to open eyes and break open hearts.

And on the sidewalk outside the Burlington ICE facility, it will be told where those who are detaining people inside “seem to have forgotten it.”

— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.

Their congregation, St. Thomas Episcopal Church in McLean, Virginia, is praying for and rallying behind the two adult sisters, Mahan and Mozhan Motahari, as their lawyer argues for their release from a detention facility in Florida. An initial court date for one of the women is Dec. 10.

“These are people that are valued members of our community,” the Rev. Fran Gardner-Smith, St. Thomas’ rector, said in a Dec. 9 phone interview with Episcopal News Service. The sisters have been in the United States at least since fall 2022, when they were baptized at St. Thomas after first encountering Christianity in Iran, Gardner-Smith said. Until their detention, they had been involved in multiple ministries at St. Thomas, which has a significant number of members with Iranian heritage.

Gardner-Smith has been in contact with a third Motahari sister, who also lives in the capital region. The family has been devastated by news of the Motaharis’ detentions. “They’re just so scared. … They just want their family back together,” Gardner-Smith said. For the wider congregation, the sisters’ absence is “like someone cut off our arm.”

“They’re missing from us, and we are grieving,” she said.

Mahan Motahari, 38, and Mozhan Motahari, 31, were traveling with family over the Thanksgiving holiday when they were detained Dec. 1 at Cyril E. King Airport in the U.S. territory of the Virgin Islands, according to social media posts by Customs and Border Protection. The posts provided neither the women’s names or ages.

The Puerto Rico-based Border Patrol office posted to Facebook that the Motaharis were “illegal aliens from Iran” and had been “processed for removal proceedings,” and the office shared a photo of the sisters in custody. The primary Facebook account of Customs and Border Protection followed hours later with a snide riff on the women’s plight: “No fun in the sun when you are unlawfully present,” it said.

This photo of Mahan Motahari, left, and Mozhan Motahari in custody was shared to Facebook by U.S. Border Patrol.

ENS spoke by phone with Parastoo Zahedi, the lawyer representing the Motaharis, and she pushed back against Customs and Border Protection’s claims that the women are “unlawfully” in the United States. The two sisters have legally applied for asylum, and U.S. law typically allows asylum-seekers to remain in the country while they wait for hearings on their claims.

That is “how every administration has interpreted this before,” Zahedi said, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Donald Trump has tended to treat people like the Motaharis, who are correctly following the country’s asylum process, as in the country illegally — even though the sisters were recently granted five-year work permits by another government agency.

Normally, the Motaharis would have to wait a long time, sometimes up to 10 years, for their cases to be heard in immigration court because of the large backlog in asylum cases. As a kind of silver lining, their recent detention will allow them to more immediately make their legal case for staying. Zahedi also said a court order has blocked the government from deporting them while the case proceeds.

One of Zahedi’s top priorities is to bring them home from Broward Transitional Center, a federal detention facility in Pompano Beach, Florida. “Our hope is to be able to secure their release, so they don’t have to suffer in detention while their cases are being heard,” she said.

Gardner-Smith called the Motaharis “amazing women” whose sudden detention defies logic. “This all makes no sense to me,” she said. She is working with leaders in the Diocese of Southeast Florida to arrange for clergy visitations for the women while they are detained there.

“We are praying for a swift, just resolution that protects our sisters’ dignity and faith,” she said. “We long for them to be returned to their family and to our community. The church is the body of Christ and ours is incomplete without them present.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

The congregation’s leaders can spell the reason with three letters: ICE.

Saint Theresa de Avila’s mostly Latino worshippers already were on edge this year as President Donald Trump’s administration prioritized Chicago for aggressively pursuing immigrant arrests and deportations. Then in September, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, dramatically expanded its presence in the city and escalated its enforcement activity, including military-style raids.

“It certainly has had an impact, and we don’t know how long this is going to go on like this,” the Rev. Gary Cox, Saint Teresa de Avila’s vicar, told Episcopal News Service. He estimates Sunday worship attendance is down 50-75% this year.

Fewer than 20 people attended the two services at Saint Teresa de Avila on Oct. 26. Cox said many members are staying home, choosing instead to participate in the livestream of the congregation’s worship on Facebook. Worshippers who still attend in person have been on alert, especially since ICE was spotted in the neighborhood a few weeks ago.

Bishop Diane Jardine Bruce, visiting from the Diocese of Los Angeles, presides on Chicago Bishop Paula Clark’s behalf at confirmations Nov. 2 at Saint Theresa de Avila Episcopal Church in Chicago, Illinois. Photo: Saint Teresa de Avila, via Facebook

All those fears, however, took a back seat on Nov. 2 when the congregation welcomed Bishop Diane Jardine Bruce, who was visiting Chicago from the Diocese of Los Angeles. On behalf of Chicago Bishop Paula Clark, Bruce presided at the congregation’s two confirmation services. Attendance swelled to about 80 people as four people were confirmed.

“It was really wonderful. I have not seen the church that filled in a long time,” the Rev. Sandra Castillo, an assistant priest at Saint Teresa de Avila, told ENS. She also serves the Diocese of Chicago as canon for migration ministries.

The diocese also received encouraging news last week when a member who had been held in immigrant detention for weeks was released from custody. Willian Alberto Giménez Gonzalez, a member of St. Paul and the Redeemer Episcopal Church on Chicago’s South Side, was freed after a federal judge said ICE didn’t have the right to detain him indefinitely without a bond hearing.

With ICE patrols reported throughout the city this fall, the Diocese of Chicago has sought to protect its members from unlawful enforcement actions through a variety of measures, such as text alert networks, rapid response teams of volunteers and “know your rights” training sessions led by Castillo, a retired lawyer.

“We’re doing as much as we can,” Castillo said. “People are really going out of their way … to warn people and protect people.”

The increased ICE presence starting in September has been tied to an enforcement action that the Department of Homeland Security dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.” Since then, local officials, Democratic state legislators, immigrant advocates and residents have accused the Trump administration of heavy-handed tactics that have sometimes involved detentions of people with no criminal records or immigration violations.

On Sept. 24, Clark said her diocese was canceling its annual Latino Liturgy out of concern for worshippers.

“I am humbled and sobered by the reminder that, for many in our diocese, the increased presence and aggressive tactics of ICE are a source of paralyzing fear that threatens personal safety, family well-being, and even the freedom to practice one’s faith,” Clark said at the time. “In light of this, I ask your continued prayers: for courage, for comfort, and for trust in God’s providence. May we stand in solidarity with those who find themselves in danger simply by tending to the daily rhythms of life.”

Cox said the immigration arrests also have upended the regular vendor fairs that Saint Teresa de Avlia hosts on church grounds. The vendors no longer feel comfortable setting up their stands there, and attendance also is down at the congregation’s outdoor fundraising events.

The fear goes beyond neighbors with uncertain legal status, Cox said. Even American citizens and immigrants with legal residency are concerned about getting swept up in ICE raids. They “are at risk just because they’re Latino and because they live in this area,” Cox said.

The congregation was particularly rattled by reports that a man was detained by ICE in an alley across from the church, and ICE has conducted enforcement actions in other parts of the city’s Southwest Side within a mile or two of Saint Teresa de Avila.

An Oct. 25 service honoring St. Jude was moved from the church building to a member’s home as a precaution, Cox said. For the confirmation services on Nov. 2, the congregation took additional steps to make it safer for members to attend in person.

They hung signs on parts of the building designating certain spaces as “área privada,” or “private area,” to deter ICE from entering without a warrant. The congregation has distributed whistles, which can be sounded if anyone sees ICE. And during the confirmation services, a member was stationed outside the church to watch for ICE, ready to alert worshippers if any federal agents approached. None did.

Worshippers should feel empowered to decide for themselves how they will respond to potential threats from federal agents, Cox said, though he is hopeful that more will find a “middle ground” between caution and boldness and begin returning to in-person services at Saint Teresa de Avila.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

“We ask the whole church to unite in prayer, action and solidarity to proclaim that in Christ there are no strangers or foreigners, only one people reconciled in the love of Jesus,” the letter said. 

“As a coalition, we affirm that the church cannot remain silent. The prophets remind us that in times of great injustice, God’s people are called to raise their voices and turn their hearts to the Lord. Jesus taught us that what we do for the least among us, we do for Him. To remain silent at this time would be to be complicit in injustice.”

The 15-member steering group includes three bishops, clergy and lay leaders representing all nine church provinces. 

The letter was written in response to the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies and the increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids nationwide, particularly the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling lifting restrictions on roving patrols and racial profiling during immigration stops.

“The recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo (sic), as well as current public policies, allows people to be detained simply for ‘looking foreign,’ for speaking English with an accent, or for speaking Spanish on the streets,” the letter said. “This reality has caused fear and silence in our communities.”

ICE has taken an increasingly aggressive approach toward immigration enforcement in major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago. The raids are part of the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up arrests and deportations and fulfill a campaign promise of sharply reducing both legal and illegal immigration. Many people who’ve been arrested, however, are in the United States legally and have no criminal background.

The letter noted that Latino congregations have suspended Spanish-speaking services and social media broadcasts in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling “to protect their members from arbitrary, illegal and inhumane detentions.” Earlier this summer, for example, ICE arrested 13 Latino members of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Hollywood, California, on the same day. In response, the church’s rector, the Rev. Jaime Edwards-Acton, halted in-person worship services.

The coalition stressed the urgent need to live into Becoming Beloved Community and to support migrants, in a press release promoting the letter. 

The coalition, an independent nonprofit, is a voluntary group of Episcopal entities and individuals, including bishops and laity committed to improving The Episcopal Church’s uneven track record of prioritizing racial reconciliation and healing at the denominational level and across dioceses. It was formed in 2024 after Resolution A125, “Extending and Furthering the Beloved Community,” passed at the 80th General Convention in 2022 in Baltimore, Maryland.

The letter also acknowledges Episcopalians who’ve already been working to protect immigrant communities individually and as congregations.

“May the Holy Spirit grant us the courage to live as a prophetic Church, faithful to God’s mission and committed to dignity and justice for all God’s sons and daughters.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

Members of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Chicago, Illinois, joined 75,000 other protesters in a nonviolent “No Kings” protest in downtown Chicago’s Grant Park on Oct. 18. Nearly 7 million people participated in more than 2,500 “No Kings” demonstrations in all 50 states, U.S. territories and other countries to oppose several of the Trump administration’s policies, including the slashing of federal education resources and environmental protections, and more. Photo: Courtesy of Mark McKelvey

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal clergy and laity were among the nearly 7 million people who participated Oct. 18 in nation- and worldwide nonviolent “No Kings” marches in opposition to authoritarian leaders and here in the U.S., Trump administration policies aimed at cutting services to the poor, public education, health care, environmental protection and targeting immigrants.

“As a church, we are called to witness redemptive love and work together to speak truth to power,” Chicago Archdeacon Michael “Mike” Choquette told Episcopal News Service. He and about 10 Chicago-area Episcopal and Lutheran deacons wore their clerical collars and marched east from Grace Episcopal Church in the South Loop to Grant Park to take part in downtown Chicago’s “No Kings” event, while many other Episcopalians marched in Chicago-area suburbs.

Choquette said the deacons called out multiple injustices, including those specifically targeting immigrants. Chicago has been at the center of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducting raids. Since September, ICE has arrested at least 1,000 people in Chicago and hundreds more in neighboring states.

The Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, Massachusetts, held an interfaith prayer service Oct. 18 ahead of a nearby “No Kings” rally, where more than 100,000 protesters demonstrated in Boston Common. Photo: David M. Rider

More than 2,700 “No Kings” events took place in all 50 states, U.S. territories and worldwide, where they’re called “No Dictators” or “No Tyrants. Saturday’s events were the second in a series, with the first in June drawing an estimated 5 million people in opposition to a military-style parade commemorating the U.S. Army’s 250th Anniversary and Trump’s 79th birthday. 

In Washington, D.C., more than 200,000 protestors, including members of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill, marched on the National Mall. Just outside the nation’s capital, the Falls Church, a historic Episcopal Church parish named for the city, held a gathering before at least 1,000 protesters formed a human chain.

The Interfaith Center of New York, led by the Rev. Chloe Breyer, an Episcopal priest, and the Interfaith Alliance organized an interfaith vigil in New York City’s Columbus Circle attended by New York Bishop Matt Heyd and the Very Rev. Winnie Varghese, dean of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, before they marched to Times Square.

During the vigil, Varghese prayed for those who didn’t participate in “No Kings” protests out of fear of being arrested, and for those who feel “defeated by the politics of today, by the real experience of their lives,” according to Religion News Service.

In San Diego, California, members of Resurrection Episcopal Church Ocean Beach joined members of nearby Westminster Presbyterian Church in protesting at the “No Kings” march at the city’s Waterfront Park. Their goal was “to speak out and stand up for justice, peace, and God’s all-inclusive love,” according to an Oct. 18 Facebook post.

Several priests in the Diocese of Pennsylvania also took time out of the diocesan convention in King of Prussia to participate in a nearby “No Kings” demonstration, according to an Oct. 18 Facebook post by the Rev. Stacey Carmody, a deacon at St. Andrews’s-in-the-Field Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and Redemption Episcopal Church in Southampton.

The Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, Massachusetts, held an interfaith prayer service ahead of a nearby rally, where more than 100,000 protesters demonstrated on Boston Common. The service included prayer, music, readings of the Beatitudes and the Magnificat, meditation and more.

For Mark McKelvey, a parishioner at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Northwest Chicago, the increase in ICE raids over the last year have been his “biggest concern.”

“ICE is separating families, and people have gotten seriously hurt by their violent raids. It’s wrong,” he said. McKelvey and 25 other parishioners also took part in the protest in downtown Chicago.

“This is an essential time for The Episcopal Church to fulfill its longtime commitment to equity, inclusion and fairness,” he added.

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

Clark issued a written statement after visiting Oct. 7 with Willian González at the North Lake Detention Center in Baldwin, Michigan, north of Grand Rapids. González, a member of St. Paul and the Redeemer Episcopal Church in Chicago, Illinois, has been in federal custody since Sept. 12. 

“As an asylum seeker with a valid work permit, he is confused by his continued detention and deeply concerned about the wellbeing of his wife and children, for whom he is the primary provider,” Clark said. “Despite these challenges, Willian remains grounded in faith and expressed deep gratitude for the support of his church community.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has told local media that González, originally from Venezuela, missed a immigration court hearing in April 2024 and was ordered removed from the country, though his attorney has countered that the order was later rescinded and he was not due to return to immigration court until next year.

Episcopalians at González’s congregation and around the Diocese of Chicago have rallied in support of him, including at an Oct. 7 prayer vigil hosted by St. Paul and the Redeemer. He was scheduled for an immigration hearing the following morning, but it was postponed to Oct. 29.

“In the coming weeks, we ask for continued prayers and support for Willian, his family, and his community. His journey is difficult, but he remains steadfast – uplifted by the love and solidarity of those who stand with him,” Clark said. “I give thanks for the support and prayers he continues to receive, and for our diocese’s unwavering commitment to justice and compassion.”

Clark’s visit to the detention facility came as tensions were escalated this week between local civic leaders and federal immigration authorities. The Trump administration has pushed to send troops into Chicago, saying a military presence was necessary to protect and support immigration enforcement agents who have been carrying out raids in the city since early September. Illinois’ governor and Chicago’s mayor have said mobilizing troops is an unnecessary provocation, and state authorities have sued to block the military intervention.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has taken an increasingly aggressive approach toward immigration enforcement in Chicago, the United States’ third largest city, as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up arrests and deportations and fulfill a campaign promise of sharply reducing both legal and illegal immigration. More than 1,000 immigrants have been arrested in Chicago in the past month.

On Oct. 9, a federal judge temporarily blocked the deployment of federal troops and federalized National Guard members to Chicago, saying the Trump administration’s descriptions of the potential dangers in the city “are simply unreliable.”

A bicyclist rides past federal immigration agents walking North Clark Street near West Oak Street in River North, Chicago, on Sept. 28. Photo: Chicago Sun-Times via AP

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopalians in the Diocese of Chicago are calling for the immediate release of a church member who was detained last month by federal immigration officials and is being held in a facility in Michigan.

The detainee, Willian Alberto Giménez González, has been active at St. Paul and the Redeemer Episcopal Church on Chicago’s South Side since Fall 2023. The church is hosting a prayer vigil Oct. 7 for González – and for all “our immigrant neighbors” – as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conduct raids and detain residents across the Chicago area.

“We believe that Willian’s detention is unjust, and that his immediate release would benefit not just Willian and his family but also our community and our country,” St. Paul and the Redeemer said in a written statement, which noted that González is an asylum-seeker who had recently received a work permit. “Yet ICE arrested him anyway and quickly moved him across state lines.”

González was taken into custody Sept. 12 during an ICE traffic stop. His attorney told an American Prospect reporter that González, at the time of the incident, was taking his wife to get a haircut in a largely Latino neighborhood southwest of downtown Chicago. After being held briefly at an ICE facility in suburban Chicago, he was taken to a different ICE facility in Baldwin, Michigan, north of Grand Rapids.

“ICE is circumventing laws and processes to create terror in communities of people seeking a better life, and we are joining with Christians and others who feel spiritually compelled to call for justice and mercy,” St. Paul and the Redeemer said in its statement.

ICE has taken an increasingly aggressive approach toward immigration enforcement in Chicago, the United States’ third largest city, as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up arrests and deportations and fulfill a campaign promise of sharply reducing both legal and illegal immigration.

Early last month, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was launching a major immigrant enforcement action in Chicago that it dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.” Since then, local officials, Democratic state legislators, immigrant advocates and residents have accused the Trump administration of heavy-handed tactics that have sometimes involved detentions of people with no criminal records or immigration violations.

More than 1,000 immigrants have been arrested in Chicago in the past month, including 37 on Sept. 30 in an early-morning ICE raid that targeted one apartment building on Chicago’s South Side. Residents reported fearing they were under siege by a military-style operation. Agents reportedly landed on the building from helicopters, then went door to door making arrests.

President Donald Trump has vowed to further escalate the crackdown by sending troops, including the Texas National Guard, into Chicago and other Democrat-led cities, saying reinforcements are needed to protect federal property and employees.  After federal agents shot and injured a woman in Chicago on Oct. 4, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called Chicago a “war zone.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, has accused the Trump administration of manufacturing a crisis and then making it worse. The ICE agents in Chicago were indiscriminately “picking up people who are brown and Black and then checking their credentials,” Pritzker said in an Oct. 5 interview with CNN. “They are the ones that are making it a war zone.”

The Diocese of Chicago has been active in helping immigrant communities and their supporters across northern Illinois respond to the presence of ICE and threats of arrest. A statement released Sept. 10 by a group of diocesan ministry leaders affirmed that Episcopalians in Chicago were “standing in solidarity with immigrants and asylum-seekers.”

“We urge all diocesan churches, clergy, and laity to get involved as we redouble our efforts to welcome the stranger, protect the vulnerable and respect the dignity of every human being,” they said. They referenced an earlier pastoral letter from Chicago Bishop Paula Clark calling on Episcopalians to support “our immigrant siblings.”

“Anxiety and apprehension are rampant in our communities, especially those of people of color, who are affected by these threats. People are afraid to go to church, the grocery store, or even to work,” Clark said in her Aug. 1 letter. “This is not merely about immigration – it is about justice, dignity, and the soul of our diocese.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has told local media that González, originally from Venezuela, missed a immigration court hearing in April 2024 and was ordered removed from the country, though his attorney has countered that the order was later rescinded and he was not due to return to immigration court until next year.

The diocese has invited all members to join the prayer vigil at St. Paul and the Redeemer, which starts at 7 p.m. Oct. 7, in support of immigrants like González, the parishioner being held by ICE in Michigan.

González “is a faithful participant in our worship and gives financially to the church every week. He has helped cultivate the earth in our food garden and shared dinners in our homes. We pray and sing together,” the congregation said in its written statement protesting his detention. “Every Sunday we receive the sacrament of Holy Communion together recognizing that we are God’s beloved children created in God’s image, and all have a place at God’s Table.”

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network has raised $5,800 to support González through a GoFundMe campaign. The Diocese of Chicago also worked with the Diocese of the Great Lakes in Michigan to arrange for González to receive a pastoral visit with a priest at the facility.

His next immigration court date is Oct. 8.

“I find myself surprised by all you have done to support me,” González said in a written statement released by the diocese. “It fills me up with hope and I ask God to help me get out of this place. I’m grateful to the church, from the bottom of my heart.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

In an Oct. 4 email, New York Bishop Matthew Heyd said the fund offers the diocese “an opportunity to make a difference for our neighbors and their families at a scary time.”

He notes that asylum-seekers come to the U.S. seeking safety after having to flee their countries, and they now will be required, for the first time, to pay a $100 filing fee when applying for asylum status and an additional $100 every year their case remains pending.

“There are no waivers,” Heyd said. “Families now face yet another barrier to safety.” Across the diocese, he said, local communities “have welcomed more than 200 asylum-seekers who will need help meeting these new annual fee obligations.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services  notes that these new fees are mandated by H.R. 1, the budget legislation passed by Congress and signed by the president in July commonly called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

Heyd said the fund also can help pay the higher fee now required when someone applies for Temporary Protected Status ($500, up from $50), as well as new fees for those seeking employment authorization ($550) and for a child applying for status as a special immigrant juvenile ($250).

This effort is part of a broader Sanctuary Legal Fund the diocese created in late September. It is designed to help immigrants get access to legal resources “under urgent and vulnerable circumstances.” It was launched with an initial $50,000 from bishops’ discretionary funds.

As described on the diocesan website, the Sanctuary Legal Fund partners with local nonprofits that provide legal services to immigrants, and it also can help with money for emergency legal support. For most cases, it can’t cover the cost of individual representation.

Information about the fund notes that New York is a sanctuary diocese committed to safety, pastoral care and justice. “As a Christian community we provide safe places of belonging. Our congregations welcome everyone, every day, without regard to their immigration status,” it says. “Increasingly, providing safety means offering support for our congregations and neighbors to know their rights through an often confusing process.”

— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.

Massachusetts Bishop Julia Whitworth prays with Blanca Martinez at a rally in Burlington before her appointment with federal immigration officials. Photo: St. Peter’s-San Pedro Episcopal Church, via Facebook

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopalians from across the Diocese of Massachusetts joined a large group of community members on Sept. 16 in rallying behind an immigrant from Honduras before she appeared at a morning appointment with federal immigration officials.

Organizers estimate about 500 people attended the event outside the Burlington office of U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement to support Blanca Martinez, an asylum-seeker who fears deportation under the Trump administration’s policies. Martinez attends St. Peter’s-San Pedro Episcopal Church in Salem and has lived and worked as a house cleaner in the area for the past decade after fleeing violence in her home country.

“Thank you so much for being here … I want to thank God because he has sustained me until this day,” Martinez told the crowd in Spanish through an interpreter before her appointment. The rally was livestreamed on her church’s Facebook page. “I am here today speaking up for myself and for so many more people who are suffering in silence.”

Her supporters credit the large turnout outside the ICE office for helping to secure good news: After the brief appointment, federal authorities released Martinez and allowed her to stay in the United States for at least another year.

“Blanca’s story is the story of many,” Massachusetts Bishop Julia Whitworth, who attended the event, told Episcopal News Service by phone afterward. “The suffering of another person is our suffering as well. The measure of our own humanity is how we treat the most vulnerable among us.”

Whitworth flew home early from the House of Bishops’ meeting in the Dominican Republic to join the rally in support of Martinez. The bishop led the group in prayer, and then she and the Rev. Nathan Ives, rector of St. Peter’s-San Pedro, escorted Martinez and her lawyer into the ICE building.

Immigrants make “incredible contributions and are at an incredible risk because of the indignities of our government,” Whitworth said, adding that Christians are specifically called by their faith to raise their voices.

“We are called to stand for the dignity of every human being,” Whitworth said. “As Christians, we are shaped by biblical stories of people whom God led into foreign countries to escape oppression. We are shaped by scriptures that again and again say welcome the stranger, care for the immigrant, stand with the oppressed.”

Martinez, a victim of childhood polio, suffers from chronic health issues that supporters fear could worsen in ICE detention. Last month, a group of about 300 people joined her at a previous immigration check-in appointment. She began seeking asylum after first coming to the United States but continues to live in legal limbo.

Along the way, she has been active in the local community, including helping to create a cooperative of immigrants who provide house cleaning services. She also is active in the Essex County Community Organization, a multifaith network of congregations and labor leaders.

“She is a remarkable woman,” Ives told ENS. He emphasized Martinez’s determination to find a better life by fleeing Honduras. Because of her childhood polio, she walks with only one fully functioning leg, yet she was able to make the journey to the United States on foot.

So far, her efforts to seek asylum have been “denied all along the way, every appeal,” Ives said. “It’s really unconscionable when you look at it objectively.”

About five years ago, she won a stay of removal, Ives said, but now she again faces the threat of deportation – like many other immigrants in Salem and other communities of the Diocese of Massachusetts.

“We’re dealing with the fallout left and right of broken families, and it’s just been absolutely tragic,” Ives said, in describing ICE detention of family members in the area who had been working hard and paying taxes. “These are all functioning members of our economy.”

During his campaign, President Donald Trump had vowed to oversee mass deportations of millions of people living in the United States without permanent legal residency status. He began pursuing policies to follow through on that promise in the hours after his Jan. 20 inauguration to a second term, with a series of executive orders related to immigration.

Although Trump and fellow Republicans have said their priority is the deportation of people convicted of crimes, this year’s immigration enforcement raids have swept up thousands of people with no criminal record. Data tracked by NBC News indicates there were more than 58,000 people in immigration detention as of last week, and less than 55% had been convicted of or charged with crimes.

The Sept. 16 rally for Martinez was organized by the Matahari Women Workers’ Center, which has mobilized public accompaniment campaigns as a way to stop or slow immigrant detentions. It describes many of those detentions as “kidnappings” that take hard-working people away from their families and communities.

Whitworth told ENS she felt it important to be with the group supporting Martinez, even though it meant missing the end of the House of Bishops’ fall gathering. She said she had the blessing of Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe.

“One of the things that we’re talking about in House of Bishops is how important our local work is,” Whitworth said. “Bishop Rowe is a really clear that we are a gathering of bishops who serve in local communities, as pastors, as preachers, as teachers and also as prophetic voices. That’s what we’re called to do and be.”

She also, as a Christian, wanted to counter the anti-immigrant narrative espoused by white supremacist and Christian nationalist movements.

“I think that that’s what our folks in the Diocese of Massachusetts are feeling so acutely,” she said, “that we have an alternate narrative to share about the Gospel, not only here but across the church.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

The Winn Correctional Center, an ICE detention facility, is seen in this aerial photo in Winnfield, Louisiana, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopalians in the Diocese of Western Louisiana’s Allies for Immigrants ministry are working to support immigrants who are in facilities throughout the state operated by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.

“The one thing I keep thinking of from the Bible lately is, ‘Treat the person from another country as you treat your own countrymen,’” the Rev. Bette Kauffman, deacon at Grace Episcopal Church in Monroe, told Episcopal News Service. “It’s so absolutely crystal clear that there is to be no distinction between how we treat our fellow humans based on where they are from, and that passage (from Leviticus 19:33-34) is always [in] my mind these days.”

The idea to establish Allies for Immigrants began in late 2019, when an immigration attorney moved to Alexandria and joined St. James Episcopal Church. At St. James, he met Joy Owensby, missioner for the Diocese of Western Louisiana’s Formation and Community Engagement. He explained that Louisiana has a “Detention Center Alley.”

“When we realized that [the state’s] all nine ICE facilities are inside the Diocese of Western Louisiana, we felt like we needed to respond in some way,” Owensby, who is married to Western Louisiana Bishop Jacob W. Owensby, told ENS. “I spoke with the bishop, and he was on board. So, Bette and I got about 20 people together, and we started meeting on Zoom every month.”

Those meetings led to the formation of Allies for Immigrants, which serves those immigrants who are detained in a center and those who’ve been released. The allies write letters and send Christmas cards to detainees and donate money for commissary accounts. They also contact their local, state and federal elected officials to advocate for the release and well-being on behalf of detainees and share information on immigration rights on social media. When permitted, they visit detainees in the centers and offer pastoral care. For those who’ve been released, the allies provide transportation, reunite immigrants with their families or sponsors and donate cell phones and other immediate necessities. The allies also offer prayer support for detained and released immigrants.

Louisiana has nine ICE detention facilities, more than any other state except Texas. This includes a “staging facility” at Alexandria International Airport in central Louisiana, a hub for rapid deportations. Most of Louisiana’s centers are in poor, rural areas, where access to legal representation is limited. Lawyers, federal oversight officials and immigration advocates have decried the inhumane conditions inside Louisiana’s detention facilities, including physical abuse, poor medical care, widespread use of solitary confinement and unsanitary conditions.

As of July 27, 7,379 detainees are in Louisiana. Nationwide, 59,041 migrants and asylum-seekers were in ICE custody as of Aug. 14, according to the latest available data compiled by NBC News.

Allies for Immigrants works with other dioceses and with local organizations, like the Shreveport-based nonprofit Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention, or LA-AID. The all-volunteer organization provides transportation, meals and overnight houses for released immigrants. Members of LA-AID also write letters to detainees and advocate for humane treatment and medical care, as well as communicate with detainees’ families.

Kauffman and Owensby both said there’s a “huge difference” between 2025 and previous years in advocacy work for Allies for Immigrants.

“At least during the first Trump administration, people could get released on bond. Now, very few people are getting released and more people are either being deported right away or staying stuck in the detention centers,” Kauffman said.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to deport undocumented immigrants and immigrants with criminal histories. However, many immigrants who’ve been arrested and deported since he took office in January were in the United States legally and have no criminal background.

Since January, ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have been arresting immigrants at courthouses, workplaces and other public and private places nationwide. In the Diocese of New York, three Episcopalians were arrested in July after going to federal immigration courts for routine and mandated appearances.

One of the New York Episcopalians, Elizabeth “Ketty” De Los Santos, a 59-year-old asylum-seeker from Peru and a parishioner of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in White Plains, is confirmed to be in Monroe, Louisiana, as of Aug. 13. She was sent by bus to ICE’s Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe without any of her medications and is now at Ochsner LSU Health-Monroe Medical Center in Monroe for unspecified in-patient treatment.

Members of Allies for Immigrants are working with the Diocese of New York and St. Bartholomew’s to advocate for De Los Santos’ release and to help ensure her well-being while detained. Kauffman has attempted multiple times to make a pastoral visit to De Los Santos at the hospital, but the ICE agent supervising her has refused every time. Kauffman told ENS she “hasn’t given up” and is looking for other legal avenues to visit De Los Santos, who is believed to have no telephone access while hospitalized.

Kauffman and Owensby said Allies for Immigrants are limited legally in what they can do to directly help detainees, but they regularly stay in contact with the detention facilities’ chaplains to help address spiritual needs. Over the past couple of years, the ministry has, by request, purchased $6,000 worth of Bibles for detainees in different languages, most in Spanish. A priest in the Pineville-based Diocese of Western Louisiana is also working with a chaplain to eventually hold worship services in one of the centers.

“It’s all just been so overwhelming,” Kauffman said.

Owensby concurred.

“Everyone’s exhausted, but we believe in the cause, and we are really committed to this work that Jesus says we’re supposed to do,” Owensby said. “Even the seemingly little things like the letters and the Christmas cards are letting these people know that there are people out there who are praying for them and care about them.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.