(RNS) — Each Friday for the previous 19 years, a bunch of Catholics has prayed the rosary outdoors a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Illinois, forming a small circle for mutual assist and heat. The rotating band of lay leaders, nuns and clergymen had largely cordial interactions with ICE brokers, members say: Clergymen and others have been generally allowed to climb aboard buses and pray with detainees as they left the positioning to be deported overseas.
However in keeping with the Rev. Brendan Curran, ICE’s demeanor started to alter earlier this yr. Then issues shifted dramatically roughly two months in the past, when masked ICE brokers on the facility started violently dispersing protesters, even non secular leaders.
“(There’s) a bodily must step away from the house we occupied for nearly 19 years for our personal security, the protection round us and the protection of these we accompanied,” stated Curran, a Dominican priest and co-founder of Clergymen for Justice for Immigrants. He stated his non secular freedom, together with others, has been met with intimidation and “untoward hurt” by the hands of federal officers.
Operation Halfway Blitz, a part of the Trump administration’s broader mass deportation effort, started in early September in Chicago, dwelling to the third-largest archdiocese within the nation. Catholics within the metropolis, lots of them immigrants, have been significantly impacted by roving ICE brokers: Clergymen have warned parishioners to take warning when leaving worship and led particular Lots to mourn a person shot and killed by ICE brokers.
In opposition to that backdrop, on a regular basis parishioners and leaders, starting from Illinois’ Sen. Dick Durbin and Pope Leo XIV himself, have been standing up for immigrants, claiming their religion calls for they accomplish that.
Quickly after ICE brokers started showing on the streets of Chicago, the Coalition for Non secular and Public Management organized a “individuals’s Mass” outdoors the Nice Lakes Naval Station, a army base in North Chicago, Illinois, that had been designated a staging location for ICE operations within the area.
“We felt that we have to do one thing prophetic within the second to push again towards the deliberate militarization and deliberate marketing campaign of deportations that was going to unfold in our metropolis and state,” stated Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, head of the coalition.
His group organized a good bigger occasion on Saturday (Oct. 11) at St. Eulalia Parish in Maywood, Illinois, west of Chicago’s downtown. A couple of thousand individuals packed the church to listen to speeches from non secular leaders and political figures, together with Durbin, a Democrat and a Catholic.
In his speech, Durbin stated somebody within the crowd had given him a rosary from Lithuania, the nation his mom emigrated from in 1911. Immigration, he defined, is part of his American story — and so is the Catholic religion.
“The truth is that this,” stated Durbin, “individuals are residing in worry of presidency coverage. Their solely hope is for buddies and fellow Individuals to face up for them and to face up for the values that match this nation.”
He added: “What you carry to this debate is greater than I can carry as a politician: You carry prayers, you carry religion, you carry your hearts and souls.”
Durbin had not too long ago declined a lifetime achievement award supplied to him by Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, amid backlash from some conservative U.S. bishops pissed off by the senator’s assist for abortion rights. Leo, a Chicago native, weighed into the matter after a reporter requested him concerning the debate, saying a politician’s complete profession needs to be taken into consideration and that “pro-life” ought to embody assist for immigrants.
Folks, together with members of the Coalition for Non secular and Public Management, collect outdoors the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Unwell., Oct. 11, 2025. (AP Picture/Adam Grey)
“Somebody who says I’m towards abortion however I’m in settlement with the inhuman remedy of immigrants in the USA, I don’t know if that’s pro-life,” Leo stated.
After the occasion ended, tons of processed slightly over a mile from the church to the Broadview ICE facility whereas singing, praying and carrying an enormous icon of Our Girl of Guadalupe. There, a delegation of three Catholic clergymen, three nuns and leaders of the Coalition for Non secular and Public Management approached a line of state police standing outdoors the ability. Holding Communion bread in a big golden monstrance, they requested if they may supply Communion to detainees inside.
“Protesters began screaming, ‘Allow them to in, allow them to in,’” recalled Okinczyc-Cruz. “Our choir began singing ‘Pan de Vida’ … a Communion music. The refrain picked up, and it was so loud, so loud and so lovely.”
A neighborhood state police officer relayed the supply by way of phone to U.S. Division of Homeland Safety officers inside. Seconds later, officers referred to as again: they declined.
Sister Jeremy Midura, a Felician sister who was a member of the delegation, lamented the plight of these detained within the facility. “Now these sisters and brothers who’ve been seized from their eating room tables have additionally been denied a presence on the Eucharistic desk,” Midura stated in an e mail. “Our brothers and sisters have change into ‘The Disappeared.’”
A spokesperson stated the archdiocese was “not a associate” for the occasion, however in a press release on Tuesday Cupich stated that “conserving the nation protected and respecting human dignity should not mutually unique.” Her referred to ways utilized by ICE and different federal brokers in Chicago as “unnecessarily aggressive,” and that they “appear to be supposed to terrorize and trigger chaos.”
Saturday’s Eucharistic procession got here a day after an analogous Communion vigil outdoors the Broadview facility led by mainline Protestant clergy who’ve been protesting there for weeks. They, too, have been denied from bringing Communion to detainees, prompting protesters to chant: “We’re the physique of Christ, the physique of Christ is detained. We’re the physique of Christ, the physique of Christ will probably be free.”
Locals say concern about detentions or harassment by the hands of masked ICE brokers has change into a relentless amongst immigrants within the metropolis. In line with NBC Chicago, a priest was ending morning Mass at St. Jerome Catholic Church over the weekend when phrase reached him that ICE brokers have been lively close to the church. The priest, talking in Spanish, urged parishioners to take warning as they depart. Quickly after, locals rushed right down to the church and shaped a human chain, serving to information parishioners dwelling.
“I can inform you tales you’ll truly make your coronary heart break — of individuals being plucked off the road, popping out of day by day Mass and being stopped and blocked in by two ICE autos and demanded to indicate their papers,” stated Curran.
Protesters maintain indicators outdoors a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility within the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Unwell., Oct. 6, 2025. (AP Picture/Nam Y. Huh)
Among the many extra somber moments Curran has skilled in latest weeks was serving to lead a Mass for Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, who was shot and killed as ICE brokers tried to arrest him shortly after the 38-year-old dropped off his youngsters in school and day care. DHS has alleged that Villegas-Gonzalez “dragged” an ICE agent “a major distance” as he tried to flee in his automotive and that an officer opened hearth out of worry “for his personal life and broader public security.” Native authorities and activists have disputed this characterization, saying that footage of the incident paints a special image.
“It’s unhappy and tragic to witness this unbelievable manipulation of story and precise information to go well with the agenda of sure of us on border coverage,” Curran stated. “It was a really hostile state of affairs, and to go and accuse this man — that he was threatening to kill ICE brokers — may very well be no farther from the reality.”
In a non permanent restraining order issued final week, a federal choose, citing Curran and the prayer circle on the Broadview ICE facility, dominated that DHS seemingly infringed on the non secular liberty of faith-based demonstrators. The order bars violent actions towards journalists and demonstrators outdoors of maximum circumstances and requires federal brokers to put on private identification.
The choose was additionally responding partially to a DHS officer taking pictures a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. David Black, within the head with a pepper balls. The Rev. Abby Holcombe, a United Methodist pastor who was a part of the Protestant demonstration at Broadview, stated she has been struck with rubber bullets whereas protesting on the facility over the previous few weeks.
Holcombe stated she has been moved by the latest surge in assist from non secular leaders of all faiths. Whereas her group and the Catholic demonstrators have been initially unaware they have been organizing related actions, Holcombe stated, she celebrated the shared concern for immigrants. “I do hear lots of people saying: That is the second. If you happen to’re going to place your self in hurt’s method, that is it,” Holcombe stated, referring to religion leaders. “Persons are going to ask the place the clergy have been, and also you want to have the ability to say you have been the place Jesus could be.”
Curran agreed. “As an individual of religion, as a frontrunner of religion, to not converse of it’s merely unethical — and sinful,” he stated.
