From the blog of The Rt. Rev. Greg Rickel, bishop of the Diocese of Olympia (Western Washington State). The diocese is reading Bishop Tutu’s book, Made for Goodness. Rickel reflects on Chapter 4 on Choosing Right in light of this experience:
At 4:00 PM yesterday, two ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents pulled into the driveway in an unmarked car with dark tinted windows. These two youth, both 15 were waiting. The young woman’s mother was not at home (being advised by immigration attorneys that she should stay away). I am not sure where the young man’s parents are, I think he may live with his 19 year old brother.
The agents asked for her mother and she said “she is working”, then they asked who I was – I just said ” I am from a church and making sure these kids will be OK” I did not name the church because I don’t want ICE showing up there looking for mom or anyone else. They finger printed both of them and put them in “Removal proceedings”. This means they will face immigration court and deportation in a few months. The young woman has two siblings, both US Citizens and since both have health issues and her mother has been in the US for more than ten years her deportation risk is lower. What this means, is she would be sent back to Mexico, a country she left when she was one years old.
The young man kept putting his hands in his pocket (he was of course nervous), and the agents rudely told him to take his hands out of his pockets, this happened twice. They told him if it happened again they would arrest him and take him to detention.
A fellow church member showed up, she is a legal permanent resident. ICE immediately asked for her ID, she had left it in her car a few feet away, ICE asked her for her ID instantly (note they never asked for mine, I am white, no racial profiling here, right), and threatend her with detention then turned to me and said “If you have any influence over this woman tell her to get out of here”.
Mean time, there are two quivering kids.
How can these agents sleep at night?
We are working on legal representation for the kids.
Their stories are among many youth that are detained, and a whole group of un-accompanied minors.
In the last two months I have met with three teenage girls who were sexually exploited and “immigration”was held over their heads, one was a victim of human trafficking.
Thanks for your continued prayers, your work and witness.
This is the story all over the US – will the church “choose right”? What is happening in your diocese?
A report from Arizona on what people are doing – see below:
We as Christians had many seeds to sow. The Episcopal Diocese of Arizona organized many prayer vigils, parishioners of many of our churches participated in processions and vigils all over the state, St. Philip’s in the Hills Church in Tucson offered their place for a funeral for one of the victims, many of us went to the hospital in Tucson where the recovering victims were hospitalized to lay ?owers at the memorial gardens that seemed to pop up from the earth, and many of us attended the service with Obama in the gym of the University of Arizona.
This was at the forefront of the everyday sweat and toil that many volunteers in the
borderlands experience. They tote water barrels that are set up on the Mexican side of the border for wanderers in the desert. They clean up trails where the migrants have been forced to “drop everything” and run, either back to the border or to freedom in the United States. The migrant centers in Naco, Sonora, Mexico, and Agua Prieta, MX, have been almost empty since September 2010, due to a new government policy in the United States that dictates the captured migrants are to be driven and dropped at the border as far away as possible from where they are picked up by Border Patrol. Much of the aid we give now has to be directed in the Mexican towns on the border. One of our brave Episcopalians has worked with the town government of Naco to set up a clinic to check sugar levels, blood pressures, etc. in neighborhoods for free. There is an orphanage in Naco that was started by an American Church and now has been abandoned, and volunteers from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Bisbee, AZ, take food and clothes to them.
Read it all HERE. (pdf)