Pastor Josh Williams, who leads the congregation at Elm City Vineyard. Abiba Biao Photos.
Holding a candle to his chest, Pastor Josh Williams invoked the story of a migrant who taught his fellow man how to love infinitely and without prejudice. During his lifetime, he embodied mercy. He healed the sick. He taught mutual aid alongside miracles. And he certainly didn’t care about someone’s immigration status.
That man, as holy as he was human, was Jesus Christ, born to a migrant mother who labored in a stable because she had nowhere else to go. If he had been born in the U.S. today, naked and wailing in a manger, federal officials might have separated him from his family on the spot.
Which made Williams wonder: “How do we piece the body back together again?”
Thursday night, Williams brought that question to faith leaders, social justice organizers, immigrant rights advocates, immigrants, and concerned neighbors gathered outside the U.S. District Courthouse, where 100 people took time to remember those arrested, detained, deported, and traumatized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the past year.
Throughout the evening, clergy from a variety of religious backgrounds spoke, stressing the connection between faith, grace, and a willingness to welcome and protect immigrants, because they are our neighbors—and because it is a sacred thing to do. Speakers included representatives of Elm City Vineyard, Trinity Church on the Green, the Chaplain’s Office at Yale, Congregation Mishkan Israel, Spring Glen Church well as Unidad Latina en Acción, New Haven Immigrants Coalition, and CT Students for a Dream. Gladys Tentes-Pitiur, a New Haven mom who spent four months in ICE detention, also attended with her children.
Since the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January, ICE has deported over 300,000 people, according to data from the U.S. Department of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security. They include people like New Haven mom Nancy Martinez, who was arrested while taking her kids to school, and people simply crossing the New Haven Green and going to work. In addition, roughly two dozen known people have died in ICE custody this year.
The vigil fell exactly a week before Christmas day, which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, and on the fifth night of Hanukkah, a celebration of light against the darkness. For many attendees, the significance of the season remained central to the evening.
“This man of authority, godly authority, had mercy on people. He loved people. He demonstrated his passion,” said Williams, who is a pastor at Elm City Vineyard Church in downtown New Haven. “And in our authority today, we can see so very clearly that same love, that same mercy, that same compassion, is not present. It's not present. But we who are here need to show that kind of presence.”
Throughout the evening, attendees could feel that with all five senses, as they passed around and lit candles, broke out into songs of resistance, and practiced advocacy as a form of prayer. In between calls to boycott Avelo Airlines, heed scripture from the Torah, Bible, and Qur'an, and practice community safety through both faith and mutual aid, “Know Your Rights” trainings, and resource redistribution, they wove in words from artists including Howie Near, Bernice Johnson Reagon and folk singer Bessie Jones.
When the words to “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Us Around,” popularized during the Civil Rights Movement (but soaked in centuries of Black music history that came before it), rang out over the courthouse’s steps and packed sidewalk, the sound was enough to make it sound like a new New Haven street choir was being born.
Jack Perkins Davidson.
Many speakers heeded that same urgent call not to be silent, and to resist in the face of what they see as authoritarianism and tyranny. Jack Perkins Davidson, pastor at Spring Glen Church in Hamden, urged attendees to boycott Avelo Airlines, which since April has been operating deportation flights under a contract with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Avelo, which currently flies out of Tweed-New Haven airport, has included the phrase “do the right thing” in its values statement—a phrase that Davidson called out as completely disingenuous. He encouraged attendees to come to the monthly Tweed Airport Board Authority meeting, held on the third Wednesday of every month in person and on Zoom.
“We need our airport authority to know that we don't want Avelo to be operated in this city, unless they are going to do the right thing,” he said.
Rev. Ally Brundige, a priest associate at Trinity Church on the Green and a teacher of the history of social justice at Highville Charter School, added that social action—and resistance—is a responsibility shared by every New Havener and Connecticut resident. In the face of the militarization of the National Guard in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Memphis, Brundige urged attendees to call Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and demand National Guard protections in the state.
The campaign, led by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Connecticut and supported by social justice organizations across the state, argues for “specific language to ensure the Connecticut National Guard, while under the Governor’s command, is not used for domestic law enforcement activities that conflict with the state’s values and priorities.”
Charla Nich.
In addition to its moving spiritual message, the vigil took notes from other communities in which ICE has become a terror to communities. Before the evening was over, Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA) founder John Lugo and CT Shoreline Indivisible member Charla Nich handed out whistles meant to alert neighbors to the presence of ICE near their homes, schools, businesses and in their communities. Addressing the crowd, the two got an assist from Tentes-Pitiur and her sons, Joshua and Patricio.
“If you see ICE and you have a whistle, we blow. Blow it twice,” Nich said. “If you see ICE and they're kidnapping somebody, that's a different level of alert. That's a long level.”
Nich, one of the organizers of the event and the leader of CT Shoreline Indivisible, said that she hoped that it would help equip the public with the necessary information and tools to take action. Currently, CT Shoreline Indivisible is running a campaign to raise money to distribute 5,000 whistle packets to community members. Currently, $2,500 has been raised, enough for over 500 whistles and 60 megaphones.
“If you look at all the actions in Portland and things like that, I mean, you know, that doesn't happen overnight,” she said, of the whistles. “We really have to build the infrastructure so that we're all ready to walk our values when they show up.”
Lugo invited the crowd to a fundraiser for Tentes-Pitiur’s family at the New Haven People's Center. The fundraiser, which takes place this Saturday at 6 p.m., is dedicated to raise funds to secure housing and cover rent and a security deposit.