As mass deportations ramp up, Catholic clergy and religious rally for immigrants
A participant holds a sign during a Jan. 25, 2025, interfaith rally in support of immigrants at Love Park in downtown Philadelphia. (OSV News photo/Gina Christian)
PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) — Clergy and religious continue to speak out against the Trump administration’s orders to carry out mass deportation operations and allow for immigration arrests in houses of worship, schools and other locations formerly designated as “sensitive.”
“I think we’re beginning to witness the fear and great concern for people who are vulnerable among us — wonderful, wonderful people who are making our country great,” Sister Eileen Marnien, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Philadelphia, told OSV News.
Sister Eileen joined fellow women religious, clergy and immigrant advocates at a Jan. 25 interfaith rally in the heart of Philadelphia, urging Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration to uphold Philadelphia’s commitment to remaining a “sanctuary city” — a designation for municipalities that limit their cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Currently, hundreds of U.S. cities, along with some dozen states, have adopted sanctuary policies. In contrast, a number of states — including Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia — have enacted laws forbidding such policies.
City’s Iconic LOVE Sculpture
At the Philadelphia rally, participants shrouded the city’s iconic LOVE sculpture, created by artist Robert Indiana, to symbolize how “love gets covered up” by hardline immigration policies.
“We feel it’s our responsibility as members of the Catholic faith, and as Sisters of St. Joseph … to stand with those who live on the margins,” said Sister Eileen.
Joining her at the rally were fellow congregation members and staff from the order’s Welcome Center, which since 2003 has provided literacy, citizenship classes and, with the approval of the U.S. Department of Justice, immigration legal services. So far, the center has helped 358 immigrants to become naturalized U.S. citizens.
“We’ve watched people move on to become educated and hold wonderful positions in which they are thriving,” said Sister Eileen.
“Scripture is filled with messages of welcoming the stranger, of greeting all with welcome and generosity and mercy,” she said, pointing to the number of Scripture verses displayed on posters at the rally.
Echoing that perspective was Peter Pedemonti, founding member and co-director of New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, which organized the Jan. 25 rally.
“I felt like everybody was coming together, beginning in prayer and being with the Sisters of St Joseph, Catholic priests, laypeople, rabbis and pastors of different religions,” Pedemonti told OSV News in a Jan. 27 phone call.
‘I Felt a Lot of Hope’
“I felt a lot of hope, knowing that as Catholics, we will all come together and keep moving God’s love into the streets, into Mayor Parker’s (office), until it softens the heart of (Donald) Trump,” he said.
Also on hand at the rally was retired Philadelphia priest Msgr. Hugh Joseph Shields, the son of Irish immigrants, a longtime minister to various immigrant communities and a former missionary priest to South America, and Father Markus Hermawan, chaplain of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Indonesian Catholic community.
“Most of them think about their future, how they can live, how their life can be better, and they put much hope in this country they thought was a great nation for them,” Father Hermawan said about migrants in the Indonesian Catholic community. “Most of them are in fear now.”
Both he and Msgr. Shields predicted a noticeable drop in church attendance among immigrant communities as immigration arrests rolled out.
“When that starts to hit people’s minds … then they’re going to be more and more afraid,” said Msgr. Shields. “Because the church isn’t safe any longer.”
Immigration Enforcement Raids
As immigration enforcement raids are being launched across the country, Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Parish in Chicago — home to a historic Black Catholic community and a parish that serves Haitian and Venezuelan immigrant communities — told OSV News he has taken precautionary measures.
Those steps include signage on all parish buildings, in English and Spanish, advising agents from ICE and from Customs and Border Patrol, or CBP, that they “do not have consent to enter this household unless they have a valid judicial warrant.”
In addition, said Father Pfleger, “if they have a court order, at least in our church services … we will surround them (the person to be detained) in a circle, and they will have to arrest us if they’re going to come for them.”
Catholic social teaching on immigration balances three interrelated principles — the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain their lives and those of their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and control immigration, and a nation’s duty to regulate its borders with justice and mercy.
U.S. Mass Deportation a ‘Disgrace’
When it comes to mass deportation, the Catholic bishops have been vocal in their opposition. Pope Francis has condemned U.S. mass deportation plans as a “disgrace.” The incoming Washington archbishop, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, called mass deportation “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.” The Colorado Catholic bishops condemned the federal government’s “open border policy” while also declaring, “Mass deportation is not the solution to our present situation in the United States, especially when it may separate parents and children.”
A reference point for the bishops’ teaching against mass deportation can be found in St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical “Veritatis Splendor” (“Splendor of Truth”) and 1995 encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”). Both quote the Second Vatican Council’s teaching in “Gaudium et Spes,” the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, which names “deportation” among various specific acts “offensive to human dignity” that “are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honor due to the Creator.”
Sources told The Wall Street Journal that ICE agency offices have been given a target quota of 75 arrests per day — between 1,000-1,500 arrests daily nationwide — with employees being told they will face consequences for poor performance.
Nearly 1,200 Arrests Jan. 26
ICE made nearly 1,200 arrests Jan. 26, nearly half of whom had no criminal records. While 613 unauthorized immigrants had criminal histories, the other 566 did not. Unauthorized presence in the U.S. is typically treated as a civil, not criminal, offense under U.S. law. However, illegal entry, or unlawfully entering the U.S., can be prosecuted as a misdemeanor offense, while illegal reentry can be prosecuted as a felony.
Among those arrested Jan. 26 was Honduran immigrant Wilson Rogelio Velásquez Cruz, who was attending Sunday services at Iglesia Fuente de Vida, a Christian church located in Tucker, Georgia, some 22 miles northeast of Atlanta.
Pastor Luis Ortiz told local media that agents waited outside, since the church’s security system — installed in anticipation of raids — requires an access code.
‘Inexplicable’ Arrest
Ortiz told media that the agents asked for Velásquez Cruz by name and did not show a warrant. He described the arrest as “inexplicable.”
“He has a shackle, but he also has his permit, his ID, his Social Security and everything in order,” said Ortiz.
Father Pfleger told OSV News that he was deeply concerned about the trajectory of the nation. He said faith communities, who “are supposed to be a conscience to this country,” need to “rise up loud and clear and strong now” to advocate for both migrants and human rights as a whole.
“There’s no time to wait,” he said.
