Abusive ICE policies can’t deter our love

Religious faithful continue to welcome, defend those facing persecution, deportation, alienation by U.S.

As professed in all our traditions and sacred texts, our communities of faith are called to build networks of love and protection. We hold our beloved community to be a place of care and safety for all, no matter where they come from or what they look like.

However, our nation’s leaders hold fundamentally different values, limiting care and safety to a homogenous group while criminalizing others. Coming from a place of hate, the Trump administration seeks to separate from the beloved community certain groups, including ourselves and our neighbors who are undocumented, immigrant, refugee, Muslim, black, Arab, native or queer.

We have seen families and communities throughout the country continuously displaced and ripped apart by abusive and deadly immigration enforcement that operates with no transparency and a complete lack of accountability. As a church community we have long been opposed to the discriminatory practice of mass detention and deportation, but our fight has taken on increased urgency with the impending deportation of the child of a family who is part of our congregation.

Yesica is one of the many people currently separated from loved ones by hundreds of miles and the steel bars of inhumane immigrant detention. During the past two years, Yesica has been held at detention centers in Texas and is currently detained at CoreCivic Houston Processing Center, notorious for being one of the deadliest immigrant detention facilities in the United States.

She made the critical decision to flee El Salvador following the murder of her father and after her own life was threatened. Yesica’s trauma was only exacerbated when she was met with cruel imprisonment at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). With the help of supporters throughout Illinois and Texas, valiant pro-bono attorneys and resolute Illinois Democratic legislators, 22-year-old Yesica has fought ICE’s denial of her case.

At every turn, she has been denied. As her mother, Ana cried, “How can they say no to my girl so many times?”

It’s because ICE cares about money, not people. Just last month, Congress approved the federal spending budget for the 2018 fiscal year. This budget increases funding for CBP by almost $2 billion and ICE by $641 million, including $370 million more for detention. Year after year, funding for ICE and CBP has increased, despite ICE and CBP’s track records of abuse that are long-standing, well-documented, and overwhelming.

These dramatic increases to immigration enforcement funding continue to threaten immigrant communities and communities of color that face the daily realities of an abusive and deadly immigration enforcement system. What is our response to these edicts to keep out, to exclude, to punish?

In the face of ICE’s abusive and discriminatory practices, we continue to welcome, love and defend one another. Our faith is rooted in a belief that we must welcome and respect the inherent dignity and value of all persons. We reject an increased budget for ICE and CBP that results in more funding for raids, detention and deportations. We demand a stop to the flood of taxpayer dollars into the immigration enforcement system, especially when ICE and CBP hide information, regularly lie and retaliate against immigrants who speak out. We will not obey these edicts to keep out, to exclude, to punish. We will work to challenge and overturn them.

In a series of coordinated people’s tribunals across the country, immigrant rights activists, community leaders and people who have been directly affected by the immigrant detention system will gather as a part of the #ICEonTrial campaign.

Nationwide, this effort seeks to expose ICE’s track record of systemic abuse and reach a verdict that is grounded in the testimonies of people in detention and their families. In Illinois, community members will gather for a people’s tribunal on Saturday, April 28, 2018 to hold the local Kankakee Detention Center accountable for 16-18 hour lockdowns, terrible food conditions, failing medical needs and more. Though the Kankakee Detention Center perpetuates human rights abuses, it is currently being slated for expansion, in line with policies under the Trump Administration.

We will put #ICEonTrial and demand the release of our immigrant brothers, sisters and siblings, including Yesica, so she can finally be reunited with her family living in Illinois.

Year after year, funding for ICE and CBP has increased, despite ICE and CBP’s track records of abuse that are long-standing, well-documented and overwhelming.