We are living in a time that demands moral clarity. Now more than ever, we should be thankful that so many Americans of faith are meeting the moment by standing with immigrant families, showing that compassion and justice should guide our communities, not cruelty and chaos.
Several of these faith leaders joined a virtual briefing held by America’s Voice to discuss why they’ve felt it’s been imperative to speak out at this time and what we can all do to support and uplift the immigrant neighbors who contribute so much to the country we all call home. Speakers included Rabbi Susan Goldberg, Nefesh founder and Bend the Arc board member in southern California; Rev. David Black, Senior Pastor of The First Presbyterian Church of Chicago; and Father Gary Graf, Head Pastor at Our Lady of the Heights Catholic Church and Priests for Justice for Immigrants member.
During her remarks, Rabbi Goldberg expressed the importance of sharing the stories of what’s happening on the ground amid the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, which in recent days have included a college student dragged from the airport and deported while trying to surprise her family for Thanksgiving.
“As we’ve expressed, it is so important right now that these stories are getting out there, and that the reality of what is happening is shared, because the level of cruelty is just unbelievable right now,” said Rabbi Goldberg. “And a lot of people who are not upfront and close to it don’t know how much this authoritarian state has really moved in and are literally just grabbing people off the street, throwing them down on the ground, punching people in the face who barely resist.”
From Los Angeles to cities across the country, faith leaders are bearing witness to cruelty, and refusing to look away.Rabbi Susan Goldberg: “[federal immigration agents are] literally just grabbing people off the street… it is just cruel.”
— America's Voice (@americasvoice.bsky.social) 2025-12-15T21:21:28.378Z
Rabbi Goldberg said that many of the individuals targeted by masked ICE agents are people who are trying to follow the rules by attending their immigration court dates, only to end up targeted for detention and deportation. Rabbi Goldberg noted that as a Jewish person, she knows this is a slippery slope that endangers everyone. Indeed, one count shows that at least 170 American citizens have been harassed by ICE. But ordinary people are stepping up to protect their neighbors, she said.
“There’s starting to be this shift where people really are like, ‘no, actually you can’t do that to my neighbor, no, you can’t do that to my friend’s kid at school,’ right? So people are walking kids to school to keep them safe, people are taking care of folks’ kids who’ve been taken by ICE,” Rabbi Goldberg continued. “Yes, protests and vigils are important, but there’s also this incredible rapid response and caretaking that’s happening. One of the things we all need to think of is like, what can I do, what is the skill set I have, what can I do?”
In his remarks, Father Graf, who is known in his community as Father Gary and just this month completed an 800-mile pilgrimage walking from the childhood home of Pope Leo XIV to the Statue of Liberty, stressed the importance of neighbors coming together face-to-face. He brought up an example of holding bilingual liturgies and picnics. He said that while some Chicagoans didn’t speak the same language as their immigrant neighbors, there was a sense of understanding and community.
Senior citizens at the events “were just enthralled with these young families who came together,” Father Gary said. “They spoke a different language, they weren’t accustomed to having Spanish-speaking in their midst, but they responded so well because I think they saw their own children and grandchildren in them, and they relived their own youth when they created a parish together. They saw this next crowd coming in, and they welcomed them as the next generation. And because they had community, felt welcomed, they really made it their home, and it was just wonderful coming together, you know, to be able to do that.”
This holiday season, faith leaders are modeling what compassion looks like in practice.Father Gary Graf describes communities choosing welcome over fear — find joy, healing, and hope in the process.
— America's Voice (@americasvoice.bsky.social) 2025-12-15T22:17:20.417Z
In his remarks, Rev. Black, who gained national recognition after he was shot in the head with a pepper ball by an officer while peacefully bearing witness outside a Chicago-area ICE facility in September, said he was particularly worried about conditions at the kinds of detention facilities where he was physically attacked. Individuals “just disappear,” he said.
“And the reality is like, you know, Auschwitz was an outsourced concentration camp for the German government,” Rev. Black said. “The prisons that people are being sent to are outsourced internment camps for the American government. I think that there’s more connection that needs to be made there, there’s very little that we know about the conditions of these camps, except for the big famous one in El Salvador, which has been described as a death camp by independent observers. So I would love to see more attention paid to what is happening to people when they are held in custody and then deported, and what we know, and what we don’t know, ‘cause I think that’s really important.”
But all three faith leaders expressed optimism in the displays of unity seen all across the country during the past months. Rev. Black noted that while some historic displays of faith-based actions “insisted on a certain amount of conformity,” the movement that he sees now is across faiths and includes many people from secular spaces.
“It’s saying we show up as a lot of different people, with a lot of different politics, with a lot of different beliefs, and it actually makes us more powerful,” he said. “We can coordinate and align across those differences, rather than figuring out what we can all agree on, and then only operating on the very limited basis of what we can agree on. So I would just encourage people to show up in space and fully own who they are.”
Rev. David Black raised a stark warning: people are being held, transferred, and deported with little transparency and the public knows almost nothing about the conditions they while in detention.Faith leaders are calling for accountability and truth.
— America's Voice (@americasvoice.bsky.social) 2025-12-16T00:25:11.624Z
Many have been heeding this call for solidarity with America’s immigrant communities. In the San Diego area, community members organized by the San Diego Diocese have been volunteering to accompany their neighbors to immigration court. In Chicago, a group of cyclists have dedicated themselves to buying out street vendors’ products so sellers can return back home quickly and be safe. In Charlotte, PTA members have been standing guard at school drop-offs while other neighbors have rushed to training sessions to find out how to keep a watch out for ICE.
As speakers made clear, how you can help is all about your own skills set and comfort level. Maybe you think you’d be great at helping make a whistle kit. Maybe you know you’d excel at helping your church organize a food drive. Maybe it’s buying a delicious snack from an immigrant food vendor so they can end their day as early as possible and get back home to their family.
Each act has value, each act shows immigrants that someone cares about them, and, during a time when those in power only become more extreme and out-of-touch with most Americans in their policies and words, each act shows that we refuse to turn against our neighbors and we will stand with each other in this country we all call our home.
