Baltimore Catholics unite in prayer for migrant families facing arrests

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made five recent arrests of members of just one Baltimore parish, Sacred Heart of Jesús-Corazón de Jesus parish in Highlandtown.

In a parish of 2,500 families, 95 percent of whom are Spanish-speaking, that’s been enough to leave everyone paralyzed by fear, Redemptorist Father Ako Walker told the Catholic Review, even though parishioners anticipated arrests. Father Walker is Archbishop William E. Lori’s vicar to Hispanics.

None of the arrests were made at the church.

As of Sept. 21, the most recent data available, ICE has detained nearly 60,000 people nationwide. According to data compiled by the Deportation Data Project, ICE has made 1,736 arrests this year in Maryland – 1,683 since President Trump’s inauguration in January – through June 26.

With no end to ICE operations and arrests by masked agents in sight, anxiety runs deep and unabated.

“In conversations, you hear that friends and relatives have been picked up,” Father Walker said.

“Not a week has gone by in which we have not heard of someone who was detained,” said Lia Garcia, director of the archdiocesan Office of Hispanic Ministry.

The St. Ignatius Immigration Mobilization Committee, a project of St. Ignatius parish in Mount Vernon, organizes monthly prayer vigils outside the Baltimore ICE office. “Always on city property, always peaceful, and always prayerful,” said Kevin Burdinski, co-chair of the parish Anti-Racism Task Force.

“We usually gather just under 30 people – parishioners, Jesuits from Loyola (University Maryland) and friends from across the archdiocese. We hold them around Marian feast days at 4 p.m.”

Father Walker, Garcia and Burdinski reflected on their experiences at the Oct. 12  binational pilgrimage “Migrants, Pilgrims of Hope in Christ” held at the border between San Luis, Ariz., and San Luis Rio Colorado in Mexico. Eight  bishops from both countries and representatives from four other dioceses led a procession across the border, celebrated a bilingual Mass, and signed a joint declaration that affirmed, “in the church, no one is a stranger.”

Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Tucson, led the group along Main Street in San Luis, which is on the western edge of the diocese, adjacent to the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California. An estimated 3,400 migrants are thought to have died in the region during the past three decades.

“We join together with our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV as we remember that the Lord has called us to remember the littlest and weakest among us,” Bishop Kicanas said.

The three from Baltimore all had different impressions from the occasion.

For Father Walker, it was the sight of an abandoned pair of slippers on the American side of the Colorado River. “Could it tell the story about the person crossing or could it tell a story about broken dreams? You couldn’t help but just wonder.”

Father Walker arrived in the United States from Trinidad and Tobago in 2011. Garcia arrived in 1992 with her family from El Salvador, and says “My heart still feels for those who were forced to flee.”

Garcia cherished meeting Magdalena Silva Rentería, known as “Sister Magda,” director of the Shelter and Training Center for Migrant Women and Families (CAFEMIN) and coordinator of the Documentation Network of Migrant Defense Organizations.

She was touched by “her testimony of the many atrocities (inflicted on) those in Mexico hoping to find their way to the United States. These people have had their dignity trampled upon. These people have been abused several times. They have been taken advantage of. It’s only by a miracle they’ve been able to survive.”

For Burdinski, the most striking sight was “the border wall in San Luis. At first, I didn’t even realize what I was looking at. Then it hit me. The scale and ugliness of it – this massive, rusting structure stabbing through the earth – felt like an offense to both creation and our neighbors.

“Every nation has the right to security, but seeing how much human and natural beauty is sacrificed in the process was gut-wrenching.”

They found their education at the border to be intense.

“I would say for me, there is no way to keep emotions on the side,” said Garcia. “But it was also moving in that we learned what other people are capable of.”

Father Walker wants to answer “How do we use (our) position of privilege to advocate for them? Rounding people up and throwing them out is not a solution to the issue. The system is broken.”

“The government has the right and responsibility to protect its border,” he added. “But it cannot be one approach.”

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