CHRISTIANS living out their faith through social action are now at risk in the United States, the Presiding Bishop, Dr Sean Rowe, has written in a pastoral letter to the Episcopal Church. He expects the pressure to worsen as the Church stands up for the migrants and the most vulnerable.
Protests and widespread anger in response to the fatal shooting of a United States intensive-care nurse at the weekend forced President Trump to remove the leader of his immigration crackdown and to signal a de-escalation of the operation in Minnesota.
In the wake of this second fatal shooting of an American at an immigration protest, Dr Rowe wrote that “Like Jesus, we live in frightening times.” As always, the most vulnerable were bearing the burden.
“In the United States, we no longer live in a time when we can expect to practice our faith without risk, and we are confronting what vulnerable communities of faith have experienced for generations. Our right to worship freely as one Church, committed to the dignity of every human being, has been curtailed by the fear that too many immigrant Christians face when they leave their homes.
“Peaceful protests, a right long enshrined in the Constitution, are now made deadly. Carrying out the simple commands of Jesus — feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, visiting prisoners, making peace — now involves risks for the church and grave danger for those we serve.”
He expected that “our church will continue to be tested in every conceivable way as we insist that death and despair do not have the last word, and as we stand with immigrants and the most vulnerable among us who reside at the heart of God.”
The Bishop of Washington, the Rt Revd Mariann Edgar Budde, posted a video on social media urging Christians and people of faith to respond to the crackdown with the love and care for neighbour being demonstrated in Minnesota.
ENS/RELIGION NEWS SERVICEThe Bishop of Washington, DC, the Rt Revd Mariann Budde, at a news conference about immigration actions in Minneapolis, on Thursday of last week
As a former priest in the state, she said: “We are seeing how children are being detained; we saw how a child was used as bait to lure his parents outside; we’ve seen people dragged from their homes and their cars; we’ve seen peaceful protestors dragged from their car simply for filming what they see; and, in two instances, we’ve seem via video two Americans shot and killed.”
She spoke of those who were responding with peace, love, and care for neighbours, and urged people to support their local communities, to use their political power, and to support media that were truthfully portraying what was happening on the streets. “This is a moment for all of us across the nation. We all can do something, something large or small.
“We can care for each other. This is our moment to determine who we are as Americans. Minnesota is showing us all the way and we can follow their example.”
Outrage has been expressed after it emerged that young children and toddlers were among those taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as part of the crackdown in Minnesota.
Five-year-old Liam Ramos was taken with his father from their driveway. A photo shows a young child wearing a bunny hat and an ICE agent holding on to him.
The Department of Homeland Security insisted that Liam had been taken as he had been abandoned by his father. Eyewitness reports said that the child had been used as bait to lure his parents from the house. A judge has since blocked his deportation.
At least three other instances have since emerged of children and teenagers’ being taken into detention by ICE agents. Agents detained a two-year-old girl and her father in Minneapolis and quickly transferred them to Texas, despite a court order demanding that they not be removed from the district. The girl was flown back to Minnesota the next day and reunited with her mother, following a judge’s order.
Amid the protests over ICE raids in many states across the US, there was some relief this week for those campaigning for the release of Iranian Christian women. Two sisters, Mahan, 38, and Mozhan Motahari, 31, who are members of a congregation in Virginia, were freed from custody last week while their immigration cases proceed.
They came to the US and were baptised at St Thomas’s Episcopal Church, McLean, in Virginia, in 2022. They were arrested at an airport in the US Virgin Islands while on holiday over the Thanksgiving period (News 19/26 December). Their lawyer said that the women were not in the US illegally, and their asylum claims were in process.
The Rector of St Thomas’s, the Revd Fran Gardner-Smith, told the Episcopal News Service: “We’re so happy to have them released and can’t wait to welcome them back [to the church] when they’re feeling well enough.”
But she said that her joy was reduced by the knowledge that many others were caught up in the immigration crackdown. “There are people all around our country who are being detained for spurious reasons . . . My joy is so tempered with seeing what’s happening to others.”
