Cardinal Cupich: We all come from immigrant families

His message followed clashes between police and protesters in Chicago as the authorities broke up a peaceful demonstration outside the Broadview detention centre.

Immigration raids in Chicago “wound the soul of our city”, said Cardinal Blase Cupich, demanding that the US government “respect the dignity of every human being”.

The Archbishop of Chicago posted a video on 21 October, speaking “as a fellow pilgrim who shares the pain of many of our immigrant communities” facing raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

“Families are being torn apart. Children are left in fear, and communities are shaken by immigration raids and detentions,” he said. “Let me be clear. The church stands with migrants … Our parishes and schools will not turn away those who seek comfort, and we will not be silent when dignity is denied in the enforcement of the law.”

He added: “Americans should not forget that we all come from immigrant families.”

The message followed clashes between police and protesters in Chicago, which saw one Protestant minister arrested while another was shot with pepper spray as police broke up a peaceful demonstration outside the Broadview detention centre.

Catholic clergy had carried the Eucharist in procession to the centre on 11 October, planning to distribute Holy Communion to inmates, but were denied access. Church groups around the city distributed information on how to resist ICE detention.

There were a series of vigils across the US on 22 October under the banner “One Church, One Family: Catholic Public Witness for Immigrants”, organised by a variety of Catholic groups including several orders of women religious, the Ignatian Solidarity Network, Maryknoll, Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services.  

Organisers called for the restoration of a previous Department of Justice directive not to conduct immigration raids in churches, schools or hospitals. The vigil in Washington, DC took place in front of the ICE headquarters.

“The church is a sanctuary and refuge,” said Art Laffin, a member of the city’s Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House, and raids in churches would be “a terrible sin and injustice, and so it really calls for all the people of God to stand together with those who are being targeted and criminalised, whether it’s in the sanctuary or whether it’s in the streets”.

“The church in Philadelphia, the church in Newark, the church in DC has been built and sustained through various histories of migration, whether that be Irish immigrants or Latin American immigrants or African or Haitian, etc,” said Sr Bethany Welch SSJ, one of the organisers, who joined a vigil outside Delaney Hall detention centre in Newark, New Jersey, where protesters displayed an image of the Holy Family as refugees.

“So often, as we become more prosperous or have more advantage, we forget our origins and our own humble beginnings,” she said.

The organisers announced plans for another set of vigils on 13 November, the Feast of St Frances Xavier Cabrini, patroness of migrants.

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