Leaders Testify and City Responds with a Lawsuit

With San Antonio ranking fourth in migrant deportations — and after hearing hundreds stories from immigrants and witnesses to the disappearances of fellow parishioners — COPS/Metro proposed to US Congressman Joaquin Castro a public field hearing on ICE practices, to document the impact of deportations and detention practices on the local community. Congressman Castro agreed and San Antonio’s first public field hearing was organized.

Close to 200 COPS/Metro leaders crowded into a library conference room for the field hearing.  They were joined by TX State Senators Jose Menendez, Roland Gutierrez, TX Representative Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, and San Antonio City Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran, along with other local elected officials.

COPS/Metro leader and pastor of St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, Fr. Jimmy Drennan, testified about Kimberly, who, 8 months into her fourth pregnancy, faced ICE agents who stormed into her home without an arrest warrant and removed her husband.  He was moved from detention center to another -- the locations of which were not always known to his family -- before being deported.  Kimberly was left on her own to work day and night to support her four children, all under the age of 10.  Fr. Drennan also shared stories of American citizens profiled and detained, and desperation driving detainees to drink water out of toilets.   

Allies from the Texas Immigration Law Council detailed instances of rape and sexual assault, where access to lawyers has been extraordinarily limited and official information about detainees effectively nonexistent.  TILC Director Kristen Etter declared privately-run detention centers "essentially black sites" in practice.  

Within hours of public testimony, San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones announced a lawsuit.  Bexar County officials pledged to do the same. 

The County of Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations honored One LA-IAF with its John Anson Ford Human Relations Award for their work organizing Freedom Schools that bring faith and community institutions together to strengthen civic belonging, protect human dignity, and build solidarity across lines of race, faith, language, and immigration status.

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An Oklahoma faith leader has asked the Trump administration to allow clergy inside immigration detention centers to offer pastoral care for detainees.

Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told a group of local parishioners that the request was among the issues he discussed during a high-profile meeting with President Donald Trump in January. At a recent gathering at Little Flower Catholic Church, Coakley shared several details about the meeting, which included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem…

Voices Organized In Civic Engagement, known as VOICE-OKC, hosted the gathering at Little Flower to give immigrant parishioners an opportunity to speak directly to Coakley and to hear from him as their archbishop and the president of an influential coalition of American bishops based in Washington, D.C. The Rev. Tim Luschen, pastor of Little Flower, is one of VOICE-OKC's founding members.

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A child comes home after school in tears, asking his parents what it means to be undocumented. “Do I have documents?” he asks. They reassure him that he does. He was born in the United States.

During recess, he was playing soccer with his classmates. His team scored a goal and were celebrating when a classmate on the opposing team approached him. He told him that Donald Trump was going to come for him and his family at night to take them out of this country.

“The boy didn’t want to go back to school,” Ildefonso Magaña, a (Valley Interfaith Project leader and) union organizer for more than 20 years, told America in a Spanish-language interview. An anxious coworker shared the story with him a couple of months ago.

At the urging of Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action (COPA) leaders, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the creation of Esperanza Care 2.0—a county healthcare program for undocumented adults, launching with 500 people and a commitment to expand.

With over 650 letters in hand from Oklahomans expressing concern about recent immigration enforcement, VOICE, ACTION, and the National Association of Evangelicals met with Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt to discuss the impact and future of immigration policy. 

Amid a growing climate of fear in Los Angeles, One LA-IAF launched its "Freedom School" strategy to respond to recent immigration raids and undermining of civil liberties that have terrorized communities throughout Los Angeles County. Hearkening back to the civil rights movement, 200 leaders spent July 4th reflecting on their faith traditions and American constitutional principles, while learning concrete organizing skills to safeguard their communities.

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As the first-ever American pope takes to the throne of St. Peter on Sunday, immigration advocates in the Valley hope his past can bring change to the future.

“As we’re beginning to learn more about Pope Leo, we have someone who understands the American context and the Latin American context,” said Joe Rubio, the director at Arizona Interfaith Network.

Pope Francis meeting with Rabbi Lyon. He and Bishop John Ogletree (photo below) are leaders with TMO and wrote this article.

[Originally published in Houston Chronicle]

Last year, Pope Francis met with a group of 15 or so Houston community organizers and leaders in his private residence. It was the third time he’d met with us, members of The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) of Houston and colleagues from the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation. This time, he counseled us not to lose the ability to laugh.

Pope Francis greets Silvia Camacho, a leader with San Juan Diego Catholic Church in Montana Vista, in a 2022 meeting at the Vatican. (Photo courtesy of Rabbi John Linder)

[Originally published in El Paso Matters]

Father Pablo Matta was just a young seminarian when he attended an El Paso Interreligious Sponsoring Organization (EPISO) meeting at Santa Lucia Catholic Church (now St. John Paul II) in 1985. At the meeting, local leaders were gearing up for a big fight – thousands of people in the colonias of El Paso had been sold parcels of land with the promise of utility services – water, sewer and gas – only to learn that they had been swindled by unscrupulous developers.