More than 200 clergy members from an array of Christian traditions have issued a stinging rebuke of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. Writing in an open letter, the faith leaders declared that actions by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE agents are “immoral,” “are tearing families apart,” and have resulted in their congregants being disappeared in “unmarked vans.”
“As Christians, we cannot look away,” write the clergy members, who according to Religion News Service come from the Presbyterian, Catholic, Black Protestant, United Church of Christ, Methodist, Lutheran, Mennonite, Episcopalian, Anglican, Unitarian Universalist, Disciples of Christ and Baptist traditions. “We must act to stop this evil and witness to the goodness and dignity of all God’s children,” the letter states. “For us, the stakes couldn’t be higher. As Matt 25:46 clarifies, those who refuse hospitality to the stranger, refuse to see Jesus in the faces of the persecuted, stand condemned.”
The open letter, “Jesus is Being Tear Gassed at Broadview,” references the Trump administration’s violent attacks on several faith leaders, some of whom have sought to bear witness outside a Chicago-area ICE facility only to be shot with pepper balls by federal immigration agents. Peaceful actions like prayer “have meant little to ICE agents,” clergy write.
“They lob tear gas, use pepper spray and bully sticks, body slam and drag protestors,” the letter says. “One of our colleagues was hit in the face multiple times with pepper balls and rubber bullets. This is the brutality we are now accustomed to. We come offering bread and prayer, hope for justice and healing—we leave washing pepper spray out of each other’s eyes.” Rev. Hannah Kardon, a faith leader who was hit multiple times during her peaceful demonstration outside the Broadview facility, has previously said that “every time we have been attacked with pepper bullets or tear gas or pepper spray that I have been present, it has felt like it came from anger that we were there, and not from any determined safety need or protocol.”
“We accept that following Christ’s example may mean we are mocked and assaulted, opposed and even arrested,” says the letter from clergy. “Jesus has guidance for this as well, saying, ‘Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you.’ If he were living today, we believe he might add ‘pepper spray, body slam and arrest you’ to his beatitude.”
“Jesus further stipulates how we must treat strangers,” they continue. “He famously told his disciples, ‘I was a stranger and you invited me in.’ When asked what he meant by this, he said, ‘Whatever you did to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did unto me.’”
“DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter, but religious pushback to ICE continues to grow,” Religion News Service said. “The Rt. Rev. Paula E. Clark, the bishop who oversees the Episcopal Diocese Of Chicago, also signed the letter on Tuesday. And while Cardinal Blase Cupich, the Catholic archbishop of Chicago, has not signed on, he released a new statement Tuesday afternoon declaring solidarity with migrants.”
“Families are being torn apart,” he said in the statement. “Children are left in fear, and communities are shaken by immigration raids and detentions. These actions wound the soul of our city. Let me be clear. The Church stands with migrants.”
That’s the decree coming from the very top. Earlier this month, Pope Leo XIV told visiting El Pasoans during a Vatican meeting that “the church cannot be silent” in the face of mass deportations, which is overwhelmingly targeting Christians.
“According to demographic data as of the end of 2024, the report found, more than 10 million Christians living in the U.S. would be vulnerable to deportation under Trump administration policies implemented in 2025,” Jesuit magazine America reported in April. “Christians account for approximately 80% of all of those at risk of deportation. The Christians most at risk of deportation are Catholics, 61% of the total. At the same time, about 7 million Christians who are U.S. citizens live in the same household as someone at risk of deportation.”
The clergy members write in their letter that when their congregants and their families “are kidnapped, forced into hiding, torn away from their families—those things are happening to Jesus in real time.” They write that as Christians, they have a duty to recognize Jesus in the faces of the marginalized.
In San Diego, for example, volunteers compelled by their teachings have been taking part in “a program to make sure refugees and asylum seekers are not alone at immigration hearings,” National Catholic Reporter said in August. San Diego Bishop Michael Pham, a former refugee who was Pope Leo XIV’s first bishop appointment of his papacy, has been spearheading the effort. Pham revealed this past summer that when he and faith leaders accompanied immigrants who were following the rules by going to their appointments, deportation agents actually fled after spotting them in the hallways. As a result, no one was abducted.
Clergy members noted in their letter that there is still time to be on the right side of history – including for those that are helping the administration carry out its mass family separation campaign on the ground.
“The Trump administration and the ICE agents, too, can have a change of heart,” they conclude. “They can set aside their indifference and cruelty. They can put away their assault rifles and bully sticks. They can give up their pepper spray and rubber bullets. They can choose not to do this, cross to the other side of the fence and join us for communion.”
“It’s not too late to repent.”
