From New York to New Mexico, Episcopalians speak against new ICE detention centers

The Rev. Richard Witt, executive director of the Episcopal-affiliated nonprofit Rural & Migrant Ministries, speaks at a Jan. 29 protest in Chester, New York, where ICE is seeking to open a new detention facility. Photo: Rural & Migrant Ministry, via YouTube

[Episcopal News Service] Some of the sharpest criticisms of the Trump administration’s immigration policies have focused on the aggressive tactics used by federal enforcement agencies in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and other U.S. cities. Episcopalians, in addition to decrying the cruelty of those tactics, also are joining other Americans nationwide in speaking against plans to expand the network of detention centers where individuals are being held as part of the ongoing federal operations targeting legal and illegal immigration.

“Our faith calls us to the radical and sacred work of love above all else,” Virginia Bishop E. Mark Stevenson told the Hanover County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 28 during public comments on the federal government’s plan to purchase property in the county for a detention facility.

Stevenson noted that eight of his diocese’s churches are located in the county. “Introducing a detention facility into our community shifts our focus away from love, care and welcome and to surveillance, hostility and fear,” he said.

In El Paso, Texas, Ana Reza, the Borderland Ministries chaplain for the Diocese of the Rio Grande, was one of about 200 people who signed up to provide public comment in opposition to a new detention facility in El Paso County, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement already operates several such facilities.

“There are 70,000 detained throughout the U.S.A. Over 74% of them have never had a criminal charge,” Reza said Jan. 26 during public comment before the county’s governing body. “Detention centers are evil. They are torture. … Say no to these evil places.”

The Trump administration, in setting a goal of mass deportations, has required additional detention facilities to hold immigrants targeted by its expanding enforcement operations. The number of federal detention sites has more than doubled to 212 in the past year, according to the Associated Press, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with the backing of $45 billion authorized by Congress last year, is looking to open additional large-scale facilities in communities across the country.

Many of those communities are telling the government no. El Paso County, for example, adopted a plan this week to inform federal officials of its opposition to new detention centers and to ensure the public is notified if the federal government pursues new facilities.

In New Mexico, the state legislature is advancing a bill that would limit local cooperation with ICE’s detention operations. Rio Grande Bishop Michael Hunn, whose diocese includes New Mexico, El Paso and the borderlands of West Texas, released a video Jan. 31 supporting such efforts.

“We still need border enforcement and we need public safety. We do need jails and police officers. But their job is to protect us and keep us safe, not to harass us and imprison people who have no criminal record,” Hunn said. “Let’s have our voice be clear: We want moral law enforcement, and we do not need larger detention centers or more of them in order to detain even more of our hard-working neighbors.”

In Virginia, ICE reportedly is interested in converting a warehouse into an immigrant detention facility. The Hanover County Board released a statement saying it opposed the purchase, citing land-use concerns. More than 170 people signed up for the board’s public comment session on Jan. 28, and like Stevenson, most reportedly spoke against the facility.

“By opposing this detention facility, we are standing on the fundamental truth that a person’s value is not in their paperwork but in their personhood, their relationships and the sacredness of their human dignity,” Stevenson said, in a video of the bishop’s statement shared to social media by the Diocese of Virginia.

Another ICE detention center has been proposed in Chester, New York, a town of about 13,000 people in Orange County, about 60 miles north of New York City. Episcopalians active in the Episcopal-affiliated nonprofit Rural & Migrant Ministry gathered Jan. 29 to protest outside the  planned detention center there. Hundreds of people attended.

“ENOUGH,” the group said in a Facebook post about the protest. “Concentration camps do not belong in our community — or ANY community!”

ICE’s plans to buy and repurpose warehouses in other communities have been met with similar resistance, according to reporting by ABC News. In some cases, local leaders have noted that local laws may give them few legal paths to stopping such operations, and ICE often does not inform communities of its plans.

“ICE is immune from any local regulation that interferes in any way with its federal mandate,” an Orlando, Florida, city attorney said in a letter quoted by ABC News.

Even so, some communities are taking action. Merrillville, Indiana passed a resolution opposing ICE using a local warehouse to hold detainees. Kansas City, Missouri, has adopted a moratorium on any new detention facilities that aren’t run by the city, though it isn’t clear whether that measure can block ICE if it tries to locate a facility there.

In Oklahoma, ICE has worked in recent months to reopen and house immigrant detainees in a privately owned correctional facility in Watonga that had been closed since 2010. Oklahoma Bishop Poulson Reed referenced the 2,160-bed facility in a message last month to Episcopalians in the state.

“Holy Scripture and the Christian tradition support a nation’s right to secure its borders, and maintain an orderly process for immigration,” Reed said. “At the same time, the Scriptures make plain that every person, without exception, is beloved, made in God’s image, and that we are to respect the dignity of every human being. Immigrants and refugees are specifically lifted up in the Bible as those deserving our respect, our concern and our help.”

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