Faith Communities Continue To Come Together To Protect Their Immigrant Neighbors

The late Pope Francis, who died last April at the age of 88 following an illness, was a stalwart defender of the rights, dignity, and humanity of immigrants and refugees. A new joint effort by a Catholic parish and local service providers in southern California is living up to those values.

The Pope Francis Center, located across the street from Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in San Diego’s Logan Heights, “will serve as a welcoming and supportive space that connects immigrant individuals and families with our three areas of ministry: essential resource navigation, spiritual and emotional accompaniment, and legal services,” the organization’s website said. “This center will embody Pope Francis’ vision of a church that is welcoming, una iglesia en salida, a church of encounter.”

Brinkley Johnson, manager of the Pope Francis Center, “has spent months hearing directly from church members to find out what the greatest need is,” KPBS reported. “Mental health services are something that came up repeatedly, especially for mixed-status families where the children might be U.S. citizens, but their parents are undocumented.” Nationally, an estimated 4.4 million American citizen children have at least one undocumented parent, according to the American Immigration Council.

And when a trip to the grocery store or school drop-off can now result in detention and family separation, requests for legal assistance have also been a major concern, Johnson said. In coordination with Alliance San Diego, Casa Cornelia Law Center, and the American Bar Association’s Immigration Justice Project, the Pope Francis Center hopes to address some of these concerns and help the daily lives of immigrant neighbors who help make up this vibrant community.

“What we want to do here is create a space of hope and a space for welcome,” Johnson told KPBS. “We might not be able to solve all the problems — in fact, we certainly cannot — and we aren’t able to reduce all the suffering our government is causing. But we want to offer something that is meaningful and worthwhile.”

Faith in action continues to play out in communities all across the country in recent weeks. Amid rumors that federal immigration enforcement actions may next target Haitian community members in Springfield, Ohio, locals have been organizing to protect their neighbors, The 19th reports.

“Church-supervised hubs to house and care for children separated from their parents. Phone chains to activate citizen networks if federal immigration agents are spotted in the community. Volunteers to deliver food to hungry neighbors from their own cars instead of food pantry trucks. Training on what to do if agents breach one of the churches planning to provide sanctuary to immigrant families,” the report said. “These are just some of the preparations that residents of Springfield, Ohio, have made in recent days as the country barrels toward the end of an immigration program that has allowed some 330,000 Haitians to legally live and work in the United States because of the rampant violence and political volatility in Haiti.”

In Maine, another recent target of the federal government’s mass deportation agenda, clergy formed a “spiritual ‘shield’ outside workplaces to protect immigrants from ICE,” Religion News Service reported. The Rev. Jane Field, a Presbyterian Church minister and leader from the Maine Council of Churches, said that around two dozen clergy members gathered daily over the past week to form a sort of “shield” around a local business that employs a number of immigrant neighbors. While they can not interfere with immigration actions, their presence was a moral one. Recall that when faith leaders including San Diego Bishop Michael Pham accompanied immigrants to their court dates last year, agents “scattered.”

“The rotating band of clergy has gotten used to staring down agents during what has become a twice-daily ritual, she said, with officials often driving by or sometimes lingering in the parking lot,” the Religion News Service report continued. “‘ICE has been there almost every time,’ Field said.”

Also this week, several hundred people of faith protested in Washington, D.C. to demand that federal lawmakers vote against mass deportation funding. Several of those arrested by police included clergy leaders like Unitarian Universalist Association President Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt.

“I am here today with my siblings of many faith traditions because we know that budgets are moral documents,” she said at the interfaith “Praying with Our Feet” event. “There is no moral justification for voting for a budget that will put more resources toward the violation and dehumanization of our neighbors. As religious leaders, we have an ethical obligation to show up and say that this will not be done in our name.” In her remarks, the Rev. Dr. Betancourt alluded to powerful demonstrations of solidarity and community all across the country.

“We are faithfully following the leadership of those who are giving everything they have to protect their neighbors,” she continued. “And we will do everything in our power to end the desecration and to restore the soul of this nation.”