POTOMAC, Md. (RNS) — Lower than per week after becoming a member of a lawsuit difficult the Trump administration’s reversal of a coverage limiting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at homes of worship, leaders of the Latino Christian Nationwide Community gathered from Feb. 16 to Feb. 18 outdoors Washington, D.C., in suburban Maryland to plan their subsequent steps.
“We’re operating an amazing threat, however we’re doing it on precept,” the Rev. Carlos Malavé, LCNN’s president, stated in Spanish to the annual gathering of about 50 community leaders concerning the lawsuit.
The southern Virginia pastor stated he had heard from different teams who had been unwilling to hitch the lawsuit out of concern the Trump administration would weaponize the IRS in opposition to them in retaliation. Nonetheless, he celebrated that his personal board’s resolution on the matter was unanimous.
The Latino Christian Nationwide Community shaped as an impartial group in 2021, drawing from a earlier Latino subgroup inside Christian Church buildings Collectively within the USA. Malavé had been Christian Church buildings Collectively within the USA’s government director. LCCN contains Latino management inside main mainline Protestant denominations and a few evangelical and Pentecostal Latino leaders. The board additionally contains a Catholic advocate.
Whereas the small community already has a number of main Latino leaders taking part, its nationwide profile is rising from its involvement within the delicate places lawsuit. A latest $1.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment can even enable the group to develop its capability.
The Rev. Carlos Malavé, foreground, performs a respiratory train with different attendees after an immigration dialogue throughout a Latino Christian Nationwide Community assembly, Feb. 17, 2025, in Potomac, Md. (RNS photograph/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)
In Latino communities, immigration fears are a serious pastoral concern. FWD.us, an immigration and legal justice reform advocacy group, projected that almost 1 in 3 Latino U.S. residents might be susceptible to household separation or impacted by mass deportations both due to their authorized standing or that of somebody within the family. These in danger embody immigrants who had beforehand had momentary permission to be within the U.S., whose protections President Donald Trump has revoked.
The Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, tutorial dean of the Centro Latino at Fuller Theological Seminary, inspired the group to take inspiration from the 2006 announcement by Cardinal Roger Mahony, who previously led the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, that the church in Los Angeles would disobey a possible regulation criminalizing aiding immigrants with out authorized standing, which he believed would criminalize distributing Communion to these immigrants. The invoice handed the U.S. Home of Representatives however by no means handed the Senate.
Salvatierra credited Mahoney with turning the tide on the prevailing anti-migrant nationwide narrative. She urged attendees to seek for their opening to do the identical, particularly as they ready to talk to congressional representatives on Tuesday (Feb. 18).
In these visits, the group urged lawmakers to create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants with out authorized standing, prioritize household reunification inside immigration coverage, defend refugees and asylum-seekers, guarantee due course of protections in immigration enforcement, proceed to offer international support and protect important limits on ICE enforcement in locations of worship as a spiritual liberty measure.
In a presentation concerning the present immigration coverage panorama, Elket Rodríguez, an legal professional who leads the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s migration advocacy, pushed again in opposition to prevailing authorized recommendation that church worship areas throughout companies are thought-about public, that means ICE wouldn’t want a warrant to enter.
Indicating an openness to check the query legally, Rodríguez cited the First Modification, the Spiritual Freedom Restoration Act and a number of other different legal guidelines to assist his argument that church buildings are non-public.
Elket Rodríguez presents to members of the Latino Christian Nationwide Community, Feb. 17, 2025, in Potomac, Md. (RNS photograph/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)
“If the state itself is limiting its authority from the Structure on down and the Congress has seen the church as a personal area when it legislates,” Rodríguez stated in Spanish, “I could make a simple argument in a court docket that the church and the state have all the time had … a separation.”
It stays unclear whether or not that authorized argument will achieve momentum, even amongst LCNN members, as an Episcopal priest in attendance expressed concern the recommendation differed from what his congregation had heard from its lawyer.
“Our persons are overwhelmed,” stated retired United Methodist Church Bishop Minerva Garza Carcaño, noting that that could be a strategic objective of the Trump administration. “We’re residing in an period of the brand new legitimization of racism,” she stated, as she expressed considerations about internalized racism as nicely.
Carcaño spoke on a panel concerning the state of the Latino church in the present day. A number of leaders raised considerations about younger folks’s psychological well being, associated to immigration fears and extra broadly.
Anthony Guillén, who leads Latino/Hispanic ministries for the Episcopal Church, highlighted, as an indication of the Holy Spirit’s work, the dedication of a Maryland priest, the Rev. Vidal Rivas at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, who dedicated to be the standby guardian for a minimum of 14 youngsters within the occasion that their mother and father are deported.
One other panelist, James Medina, who’s nationwide director of Destino, a Latino school scholar ministry, spoke in his private capability about his position shepherding and advocating for college students within the midst of the brand new coverage panorama.
“When ICE is on campus and college students are scared and fearful, that’s my place,” he stated.
Medina mentioned the overall problem college students face from rising up with stress between their Latino heritage and the U.S. context. He stated a serious problem includes serving to them heal from generational trauma or ache.
Psychological well being has change into a rising concern throughout the Latino church. Final October, the Nationwide Hispanic Christian Management Convention — an evangelical group that, in contrast to LCNN, has been a powerful backer of Trump — launched a psychological well being initiative at its nationwide gathering.
The Rev. Daniel Vélez Rivera, an Episcopal priest in Virginia, spoke throughout suggestions to the LCNN panel about figuring out psychological well being companies for his neighborhood in an space the place fewer than 1% of psychological well being suppliers communicate Spanish. In response, Guillén famous the necessity to “increase up” Latino or bilingual therapists.
The Rev. Lydia Muñoz, prime middle, addresses a gathering of the Latino Christian Nationwide Community, Feb. 17, 2025, in Potomac, Md. (RNS photograph/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)
“Among the trauma that our younger persons are experiencing is as a result of we’ve prompted it, and we’ve not had the cultural humility to say, ‘We obtained it unsuitable,’” the Rev. Lydia Muñoz, who leads the United Methodist Church’s Latino ministry, stated in public response to the panel. “We have to have a come-to-Jesus second about that.”
One other space of concern round psychological well being for LCNN individuals was the security of LGBTQ+ youth, particularly associated to Trump’s insurance policies. Guillén stated his spouse, who works at a neighborhood school, sees many Latino LGBTQ+ youth residing of their vehicles as a result of their mother and father have thrown them out.
The dialogue of LGBTQ+ points, nevertheless, exposes potential tensions inside LCNN as some individuals come from nonaffirming traditions, such because the Worldwide Pentecostal Holiness Church.
Regardless of theological variations, the leaders stated they sensed the Holy Spirit at work within the unity they present in immigration advocacy. Carcaño, the United Methodist Church bishop, stated her denomination hardly ever strikes past dialogue and prayer about unity with the Catholic Church, however they’ve lately acted collectively on immigration.
She stated she’d by no means obtained a name from a Catholic bishop till final December, when Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, who leads the U.S. bishops’ work on immigration, reached out asking United Methodists to hitch Catholic bishops in writing letters in assist of migrants.
“That was a breakthrough for us,” she stated.
Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez, a member of Humboldt Park United Methodist Church in Chicago, spoke to the group in a recorded video, calling on them to deal with each instantly defending their communities and “preventing for progress.”
“I’m inspired that we will be mild in darkish locations,” she stated. “And greater than ever, it’s folks of religion that should step in to display hope, to display religion, to like our neighbors, to welcome the strangers and to look after the weak communities.”
