For Immediate Release: March 3, 2025
Contact: Heather Cabral, 202-5550-6880, hcabral@faithinaction.org
Representatives of Faith in Action urge Members of Congress to oppose massive funding aimed at detaining and deporting children and families
WASHINGTON – On Monday, March 3, faith leaders and activists from across the country gathered on Capitol Hill to advocate for immigrant families and the millions of Americans who will be impacted by impending federal budget cuts. Organized by Faith in Action and Congregation Action Network, the event featured an interfaith prayer service before participants met with key members of Congress. The event brought together leaders from diverse faith traditions, including Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Baptist, Jewish, Muslim, Baháʼí and Buddhist communities.
During the service, faith leaders were united in calling for the protection of families and communities at risk of being torn apart by mass deportations. Long-time immigrant community members shared powerful testimonies, highlighting the lived experiences of their families, friends and neighbors who face the constant threat of deportation.
Bishop Dwayne Royster, executive director of Faith in Action opened the event in prayer, saying, “Cutting Medicaid and food assistance to fund massive detention and deportation of migrant children and families and billionaire tax breaks is immoral. It seems almost unbelievable that we have to actually say that, given that it is so blatantly obvious and viewed through the lens of justice and equity. We are truly living in unprecedented times. As people of faith, we’re being called to expand how we view faith but more importantly how we do faith. It won’t be enough to pray, it won’t be enough to make it to your house of worship each week, we must act, and we must act with intention, we must act with love and we must act with a dose of prophetic resistance. We must be architects of a new America. It is immoral to cut vital programs that support essential healthcare and food for children, It is immoral to tear families and communities apart through mass deportation. It is immoral to provide mass tax breaks to billionaires at the expense of those families.”
Following the service, participants met with Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Tony Gonzalez (R-TX), as well as Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to advocate against massive new funding earmarked for mass detention and deportations and the proposed budget cuts that would deeply impact Medicaid recipients and those receiving.
Yesterday’s day of prayer and action follows a January interfaith prayer service held in Newark, New Jersey, in partnership with the Archdiocese of Newark. At the January service, leaders explicitly called for continued protection of sensitive locations from ICE raids, including schools, houses of worship and healthcare facilities.
Bishop Mark Seitz, Diocese of El Paso and Chair of USCCB Migration Committee was at the January gathering and shared yesterday, “Our immigrant brothers and sisters have been a blessing to our communities, congregations, cities and states. We denounce plans for mass detention and deportation as part of the budget negotiations. The Catholic church will continue to stand with our immigrant siblings because our faith tells us to work for the common good. We’re clear about our obligation to welcome the immigrants just as we are clear to provide essential services like healthcare and food to poor families. We view it as an institutional responsibility and a societal one because there is no us and them when the world is viewed through the lens of faith, there is only us, and we must care for one another. Cutting Medicaid and food assistance to fund massive detention and deportation of immigrant families and to fund billionaire tax breaks is sinful and immoral. Such a tradeoff is morally bankrupt. We say no. We can and must do better than that. We must and can be better than that.
Bishop Vashti McKenzie, President and General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me… God cares about and responds to those who are oppressed and it is unjust what these communities are going through because those in positions of power and privilege misuse all that they have. It is important for Christians of all positions of society to respond and come along with our siblings who are going through suffering. May we your people be a reflection of that welcome. We all can be free, we all can be safe and we all can be loved. We pray for a world where the dignity of every person is seen and every voice is protected.”
Bishop Leila Ortiz, Bishop of The Metropolitan Washington D.C. Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said, “We cannot sit by silently as plans to place children detention centers move closer to fruition our faith and our humanity compels us to say no, absolutely not. Children should be in school, parents should be free to work and support their children. Any plan for detention centers run by private prison companies to hold children and families indefinitely is unconscionable. These acts traumatize and wound our children’s spirits for a lifetime. We refuse, we refuse to be people who become or would allow people to be such callous and inhumane towards our children, toward our neighbors and towards the most vulnerable among us. It is all the more immoral that funding for these detention facilities comes at the expense of healthcare for seniors and children. A direct contradiction to Jesus’ command to care for the least of these. Our faith calls us to protect and create safe spaces and not to corrupt them and use them to benefit sinful agendas. Children should feel safe in school, families have a right to access healthcare and to be free to worship without the threat of immigration raids hanging over them.”
Amos, a Cameroonian immigrant leader for CASA, said, “Fear terrorizes, demoralizes, paralyzes and stops people from doing what they need to do. The fear is real in congregations of churches where we immigrants assist and are being targeted, we are afraid to go to church. If we also think that fear can be false images that appear, in fear, we should come together and face everything and rise. We should stand together. This means action. It is not by withdrawing and hiding that we will defeat fear, it is by standing together and speaking truth to power.”
The Rev. Franklin Wilson, Jr., a clergy leader representing Faith in New York, said, “When I see people in power just sitting pretty and making choices on behalf of people who can make those choices, if you do unto the least of these, you do this to me. This is what Jesus really said: we have to be about that power, that responds. Holistically taking Medicaid away is an immoral process. We want to be able to let those who don’t have support have it. We want to create an opportunity for children and families. I stand today for families abroad. I believe that is what Jesus would have wanted for us to stand with every child.”
Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block, Washington director of Bend the Arc Jewish Action, said, “There’s a serious lack of empathy in our society right now, we have an empathy deficit. We have to remember our own historical experiences. When you have power it is very easy to oppress people, I don’t know if it’s natural, but when you have power be careful. Think, who is your god? the god of power and oppression or the god of justice? This is about who we are as human beings and who we are going to be as a society. That is our mission.”
Imam Kenneth Pilgrim-Nuriddin, POWER Interfaith, Faith in Action’s Pennsylvania Federation, said, “We may have all come in different ships but we’re in the same boat now…Those who come, come for 4 reasons: freedom of speech, religion, want and fear. The irony of spending billions of dollars to remove people from this country but can’t spend a few dollars to hire more judges to oversee the immigration legal process. We have a moral directive to be good to our neighbors. We can’t go to bed full with our bellies full if our neighbors are hungry. We have an obligation to show action with our faith.”
Fr. Vidal Rivas, clergy leader of Congregation Action Network, a Faith in Action federation in the Washington, D.C., area, said, “God, we ask that you pour your infinite love over this great nation of the United States and change the mind and heart of President Trump with all his administration, with Congress, the Senate and the Supreme Court. We also ask God that you change the minds and hearts of all those people who elected this president. Make them understand that when one makes a mistake one must be humble and simple and not just hit at your heart. God, make all religions comprehend that there is only one God and father of all. God, make disappear hate, egoism, resentment and envy. God, make this whole country vibrate and burn with love. When there is love there is no persecution. When there is love there is no hate. No immigrants are persecuted and no one is an immigrant anywhere in the world because this is God’s world. You, me, the president and all are sons and daughters of God. Earth is everyone’s home, the seas, space, the atmosphere and the sky are all Gods. This is our home”
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About Faith in Action
Faith in Action is the largest grassroots, faith-based organizing network in the United States. The nonpartisan organization works with 1,000 religious congregations in more than 200 cities and towns through its 46 local and state federations. For more information, visit www.faithinaction.org.
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