More than 100 residents, advocates and faith leaders gathered by the busy road outside of the Florida Highway Patrol station in Lantana on Saturday morning to pray for those who had been taken during a series of immigration sweeps across Palm Beach County that continued this week.
In their churches and neighborhoods, they say, evidence of Florida’s participation in the country’s mass deportation effort has become increasingly apparent:
The man who played Jesus in a Jupiter church’s Good Friday Passion Play was picked up the day after Easter. In West Palm Beach, another church no longer has a pianist. The young-adult bible study group has lost members. Two leaders of a different ministry are now gone.
This week, in Lake Worth, a 3-month-old girl was left parentless after agents took her single mother. Also, an empty truck was found abandoned at a construction site, a man’s lunch box and house keys still on the front seats, alongside pictures of his family.
The latest arrests came during a series of operations conducted by Florida Highway Patrol and federal agents across Lake Worth as well as other areas of South Florida this week, sparking an outcry from some residents and immigrant advocacy groups. The Guatemalan-Maya Center reached out to PEACE, a Palm Beach County social justice ministry, to help document the raids and arrests throughout Lake Worth on Monday. PEACE organized Saturday’s vigil as a response to the recent crackdown.
“We heard the cries of children in the background as their parents were taken from them,” Jason Fairbanks, the pastor of Lake Worth United Church of Christ, told the crowd. “We heard the sobs of a wife whose husband was detained, and she just wanted to make sure he had his life-saving medication given.”
Standing outside of the fence surrounding the FHP station parking lot, speakers criticized troopers’ participation in the immigration crackdown and led the crowd of approximately 125 people in prayers and songs. They held white roses to symbolize each of the immigrants who had been taken from Palm Beach County since August. Occasionally, cars driving by honked. There was no interaction with troopers during the vigil.
“We pray because we know that you are a God who hears when people cry,” Chip Jurskis, the lead minister at JupiterFIRST church, said Saturday as people bowed their heads. “So right now, we lift up the families of the Guatemalan-Maya Center and all the others who’ve been impacted by these policies. Grant them peace and hope in knowing that you hear their cries and you see their suffering. We lift up to you, the members of the Florida State Patrol and the others who carry out these policies … You know that to do the things that they’re asked to do every day, they have to silence your voice that speaks to their consciences. They’ve got to harden their hearts.”
Attendees at a prayer vigil outside of a Florida Highway Patrol substation placed white roses on a table to symbolize the number of immigrants taken from Palm Beach County since August. (Shira Moolten/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Afterwards, attendees placed white roses on an altar next to pictures of some of those detained, including one depicting the man performing as Jesus at St. Peter’s Catholic Church.
Grace Lipman, 83, and Carol Lewis, 81, both live in Lake Worth and go to United Church of Christ. They found out about the event through PEACE.
“The idea of treating people who are our neighbors, who’ve been living here for years and contributing to our society, our community, and just taking them without notice, it’s terrifying,” said Lewis. “It’s wrong and it’s evil and we care.”
The crowd was majority older and white. Organizers had warned people not to attend the vigil if they had concerns about their immigration status, pointing to the location outside of the Highway Patrol station.
FHP has been heavily active in assisting with statewide deportation efforts as part of the nationwide 287(g) program that allows law enforcement to carry out immigration operations in partnership with ICE. Gov. Ron DeSantis has championed the partnership in positioning Florida as a leader in the nationwide deportation efforts led by the Trump administration.
Palm Beach County, with its large immigrant population, has become a particular target of the statewide crackdown, advocates said Saturday. Florida Highway Patrol has had more than 600 encounters leading to immigration charges in Palm Beach County since August, state data shows, over twice the amount of anywhere else in the state.
“Our community has forever been changed by the trauma that we continue to endure at the hands of the Florida State Police,” said Latifah Griffin, the reverend of First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Palm Beaches. “As children of God, we are taught to welcome the stranger, to love our neighbor, and to care for the oppressed.”
Viviana Correa, 31, and Martha Ipanaque, 62, both attend St. Juliana Catholic Church in West Palm Beach, where Correa said members of her young adult Bible study group had been detained despite thinking their immigration status was secure.
Since the immigration crackdown, both have noticed a shift in West Palm Beach as a result of people being deported and afraid to go outside. Business owners have seen a drop in customers. Their church’s Friday celebration of the Feast of Our Lady Guadalupe was subdued compared to previous years, when it would be packed at 5 a.m.
Ipanaque said she and her husband had gone out to eat on Friday night and noticed the restaurant was empty.
“My husband and I said, ‘Wow, it’s empty, not like the other day,’” she recalled. “I said, ‘Well, people is afraid to go out even to eat.’”