In the days after a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, there has been an upwelling of community prayer and support for people targeted by the government’s immigration crackdown. Source: NCR Online.
Hours after the shooting on January 7, a crowd of thousands gathered around the site to remember Ms Good and protest the ICE action that took her life.
Thousands more have gathered at other events since then, including an “ICE out of Minnesota” march hosted by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee on Jan. 10.
Anne Attea, a longtime parishioner at Church of the Ascension in North Minneapolis, attended a “Vigil of Hope” at the state capitol on January 9. She said many in the Spanish-speaking immigrant community at her parish experienced what she described as an “Advent of darkness” as the ICE crackdown in the city began.
Both documented and undocumented immigrants have been living in fear, Ms Attea said, because ICE agents have been engaged in aggressive racial and ethnic profiling.
“We as a Catholic body should become more forceful in denouncing hate, evil, racism and lack of respect for human dignity,” Ms Attea, who is program minister in the Centre for Spirituality and Social Justice at St Catherine University in St Paul, said.
About 400 people prayed on January 13 outside the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis where people are being detained by ICE. Participants held signs denouncing ICE and remembering Ms Good.
“I think solidarity in times like this is so important,” Aaron Sinner, a parishioner at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in St Paul, said.
“ICE has a pretty clear mandate, and it’s a pretty narrow mandate by law. It’s scary to see the wanton disregard for what their scope of duty is and the reckless abandon with which they are exceeding their mandate and putting lives at risk.”
Fr Dale Korogi, parish priest of Ascension Church in Minneapolis, told a press conference on January 8 that immigrants “are not threats to our community”.
The priest said families were afraid to leave their homes.
They’re not being inconvenienced by ICE, he said, they’re being harassed, terrorised and traumatised by ICE.
In the memory of Renee Good and in the name of God, Fr Karogi called for an end to this cruelty.
FULL STORY
After fatal ICE shooting, Catholic Minnesotans continue to support immigrant neighbors (National Catholic Reporter)
