Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Calling the plight of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers a defining moral challenge of the age, scores of nuns, religious activists, and human rights advocates gathered outside the Philadelphia ICE headquarters on Wednesday to pray for change.<\/p>\n
They held signs and small wooden handmade crosses, each of the latter bearing the name of someone who died in ICE custody during the last two years.<\/p>\n
Members of the Sisters of St. Joseph and the Philadelphia Area Lasallian Ministries cohosted the vigil at Eighth and Cherry Streets, saying they sought justice and compassion for newcomers and wanted to physically and visibly proclaim \u201cthe human dignity of our immigrant neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n
They said Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Philadelphia are fracturing families and casting a shadow of fear over neighborhoods, as people are detained and deported amid President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s push for mass removals. At least 100 people took part in the vigil, the crowd spilling off the sidewalk and onto Eighth Street.<\/p>\n The rally came less than a week before the midterm elections, in which Democrats<\/a> are vying to take control of Congress \u2014 a change that could potentially put a brake on Trump\u2019s mass-deportation agenda. <\/p>\n Nationally, during the first 18 months of the president\u2019s second term, the Department of Homeland Security completed about 980,000 deportations \u2014 a faster pace than under the Biden and first Trump administrations, though still below early-2000s levels, according to a new analysis by the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.<\/a><\/p>\n Outside ICE headquarters in Philadelphia on Wednesday, the crowd \u2014 a mix of older and younger people, mostly female \u2014 held their crosses aloft and waved to honking cars. Four people held up a giant blue banner for the entirety of the nearly hour-long vigil: \u201cOne with our dear neighbors: immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers,\u201d it read. <\/p>\n A spokesperson for Homeland Security said \u201cICE respects the First Amendment rights of individuals to observe and express themselves. However, if such actions interfere with or obstruct our operations, ICE will take necessary steps to address the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cObstructing law enforcement is a federal crime, and assaulting law enforcement is a federal crime and felony. Our message remains: ICE is NOT slowing down.\u201d<\/p>\n Those who gathered Wednesday were equally determined.<\/p>\n