“If the Holy Family had been in Charlotte two weeks ago, they would have been putting the baby Jesus in handcuffs because he wouldn’t have his papers,” said one faith leader
Churches in Illinois, Massachusetts, and North Carolina are using nativity scenes that have traditionally depicted the birth of Jesus to advocate for immigrant families who call this country their home but now face separation due to the Trump administration’s cruel and chaotic anti-immigrant policies.
In one display at St. Susanna Parish in Massachusetts, the entire Holy Family is missing from the nativity scene. Behind the manger that would typically hold the infant Jesus is a sign reading “ICE was here.” It notes that “The Holy Family is safe in The Sanctuary of our Church.” Father Stephen Josoma, pastor of St. Susanna Church, told National Catholic Reporter that “the Gospel is clear about treating immigrants with respect. He noted the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ recent ‘special message’ where the bishops expressed their solidarity with migrants amid the federal government’s immigration crackdown.”
While this isn’t Father Josoma’s first themed nativity display – in 2018, the church “also attracted national attention when its Nativity scene depicted the Christ Child in a cage and the three Wise Men behind a wall,“ National Catholic Reporter noted – he has received pushback from the Boston Archdiocese, which criticized the church’s actions as “politically divisive.” The acting director of ICE – which earlier this year made sacred spaces vulnerable to mass deportation raids and has been terrifying the faithful in the months since – similarly joined in condemning the church. But Father Josoma said the display stays until he can have a further conversation with church leaders.
“You feed the hungry, you take care of the homeless, you clothe the naked, you take care of people and their needs,” he said. “[ICE raids] are the complete antithesis of that on so many levels.” The New York Times noted that some St. Susanna Parish congregants “said they were confused by the demand from the archdiocese,” which comes just weeks after U.S. Catholic bishops, backed by Pope Leo XIV, issued a near-unanimous rebuke of U.S. immigration policy. The commonwealth’s junior U.S. senator also expressed his support for the church, writing that “In this moment, we are all called to stand up for our shared humanity.”
In this moment, we are all called to stand up for our shared humanity. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/03/m…
— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) 2025-12-11T20:48:53.743Z
The leaders and congregants of St. Susanna Parish do not stand alone. Amid “rising faith-based pushback” to mass deportation policies, “religious leaders say they are hoping to make the Christmas story relevant to modern believers by recalling the dire circumstances faced by Jesus and his parents as recounted in the gospels,” Jack Jenkins writes at Religion News Service. In Illinois, the Lake Street Church of Evanston’s nativity display depicts baby Jesus with his hands zip-tied and “wrapped in a thin blanket resembling aluminum foil, which the church said is a reference to the emergency blankets used in detention facilities,” Fox32 reported.
“Masked centurions, officers in the ancient Roman army, are depicted in sunglasses and green vests labeled ‘ICE,’” the report continued. Both Mary and Jesus are also wearing respirator masks, referencing federal agents’ intentional gassing of Americans demonstrating against the detention and deportation of their immigrant neighbors.
“The Holy Family were refugees,” Lake Street Church said according to Fox32. “This is not political interpretation, this is the reality described in the stories our tradition has told and retold for millenia. By witnessing this familiar story through the reality faced by migrants today, we hope to restore its radical edge, and to ask what it means to celebrate the birth of a refugee child while turning away those who follow in that child’s footsteps.” The church is notably led by Rev. Michael Woolf, who was tackled to the ground last month while bearing witness outside a Chicago-area ICE facility.
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In North Carolina, mask deportation agents surround the Holy Family in the nativity scene erected by Charlotte’s Missiongathering Church in collaboration with art collective TaskForce, the Charlotte Observer reports. “The goal is to translate the Christmas story into a modern context,” Rev. Andrew Shipley told the outlet. “If the Holy Family had been in Charlotte two weeks ago, they would have been putting the baby Jesus in handcuffs because he wouldn’t have his papers.”
In just one example of the terror unleashed on Charlotte residents during Border Patrol’s occupation last month, as many as 20 parishioners were doing yard work at their church when agents descended on the area and forced several individuals, including at least one teenaged U.S. citizen, to flee from the church grounds in terror, the Charlotte Observer also reported. Rev. Shipley shared that Missiongathering Church “has been helping families who are afraid to leave their homes” following the operation.
Missiongathering Church itself faced an attack when a man stormed onto church property on Friday and tore down the nativity scene, CNN reports. The unidentified man also tore up Know Your Rights signs before driving away.
@cnn A Nativity art installation depicting ICE agents sparked a heated reaction when a man stormed onto a Charlotte church’s property while CNN was there filming and tore parts of it down. #CNN #news
But that violent outburst isn’t reflective of the broader Charlotte community, which has come together to protect its immigrant residents. Following Border Patrol’s invasion of the area under the so-called “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” hundreds of neighbors signed up to be trained on how to watch out for mass deportation agents, Religion News Service reported. Amity Presbyterian Church “announced it would host a training on how to respond to the influx of federal immigration agents into the neighborhood. Later that evening, nearly 300 people filled Amity Presbyterian’s sanctuary to listen to representatives from Siembra NC, a secular immigrant rights group.”
Nativity scenes critical of U.S. immigration policy were also a presence during the first Trump administration. In addition to St. Susanna Parish’s display in 2018, a nativity scene created by Indianapolis’ Christ Church Cathedral during the height of the family separation crisis depicted Mary, Jesus, and Joseph in a cage. The following year in California, Claremont United Methodist Church’s nativity scene depicted the Holy Family separated entirely and caged from each other. “Shortly after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary were forced to flee with their young son from Nazareth to Egypt to escape King Herod, a tyrant,” the church said at the time. “They feared persecution and death. What if this family sought refuge in our country today?”
It was a valid question then, and a valid question now as our nation’s immigrant families face an unprecedented – and hugely unpopular – mass deportation campaign that’s currently threatening millions of faithful.
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For St. Susanna Parish congregant Elizabeth Doris-Gustin, the Christmas displays are something she looks forward to every year, The New York Times noted. She feels they have something important to say. “‘You might not agree with everything, but it makes you think,’ she said. ‘I wish a few more churches would be this bold.’ She hopes the parish will keep this year’s display, she said. ‘I’m going to say a little prayer that they keep it up.’”
