In a recent interview on 60 Minutes, President Trump was asked if he thought that ICE has gone too far in arresting and detaining people. The President answered that ICE has not gone far enough. That response is both shocking and horrifying in light of the many videos that have emerged over the past months. Just this week in Chicago, one of the most traumatic videos surfaced of a day care teacher being arrested after ICE agents hauled her out of the day care facility in the presence of children, parents, and employees. Can anyone honestly say that ICE has not gone too far? The first video posted below is a local news report about that event.
Yet even amid the awful scenes of injustice suffered by people in Chicago and around the country, there are signs of hope. By the evening of the ICE raid at the day care facility, hundreds of people including local government officials gathered to protest the arrest and to call for an end to the traumatizing and dehumanizing ICE raids. The second video posted below features that protest. Local clergy and members of many faith communities continue to hold prayer vigils and engage in nonviolent direct action at ICE detention centers. The Rev. Hannah Kardon is a United Methodist pastor who was recently assaulted and arrested during a protest at an ICE detention center in Chicago. In an interview following her release she said, “This has always been the job and will always be the job; when people are hurting to go toward the source of that hurt rather than away from it.” The call to each of us is to find one way to go toward the hurt caused by injustice rather than moving away from it. Rev. Kardon also emphasized that there are many ways to move toward the sources of hurt. These include but are not limited to ongoing education, prayer, supporting community organizing efforts, participating in faith based mercy and justice ministries, and nonviolent direct actions such as protests or monitoring ICE raids and detention facilities. No one can do it all, but each of us can engage in a meaningful way. In following this call, we grow in solidarity with our suffering sisters and brothers and in our relationship with the God who created and loves us all.