Facing the racial motivation behind ICE enforcement

The following was prepared by the Pax Christi USA Anti-Racism Team for the Prayer-Study-Action resource for the third week of Advent 2025.

Dehumanizing immigration enforcement is fracturing the United States along racial lines.  Immigrants are being scapegoated by the use of terms like “criminal illegal aliens” when  immigrants are statistically much less likely to be convicted of criminal offenses.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, US-born citizens are 10 times more likely than immigrants to be incarcerated for committing weapons related offenses, five times more likely for violent offenses, more than twice as likely for property crimes, and nearly twice as likely for drug offenses. 

Nearly three-quarters of ICE detainees as of September had no criminal conviction or had only minor crimes such as traffic violations. Of those detained so far, only about eight percent have violent criminal offenses.  

If we’re being honest, it’s not about criminality. This is racially motivated. The Supreme Court recently legalized racial profiling as grounds for immigration stops.  

In an opinion piece published in America Magazine on Dec. 11, Bishops Daniel E. Garcia, Brendan J. Cahill, and Robert J. Brennan write: The Gospel “compels us to speak with clarity and conviction in the face of injustice toward our neighbors. Today, too many of our brothers and sisters live under the shadow of fear. In particular, right now in our country, those who are Black, Brown, Asian and Native American live in fear of being profiled, detained or deported simply because of the color of their skin. This fear is not abstract. It is part of daily life for many in our parishes, our schools and our communities.” [Pax Christi USA’s emphasis]

Currently, 43 percent of US Catholic parishioners are immigrants. These are our people, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Officers enforcing immigration laws are now able to carry out arrests in schools and churches. Our sanctuaries are no longer safe places.

In keeping with our Pax Christi USA tradition, we are called to pray, study, and act. 

Pray

Good and gracious God,

Our parishes have been divided for so long by language and race. Every part of your Body is important. Parts of your Body are targeted, hurting, and fearful. Fearful, even, to worship and gather together. We pray that our parishes become places of undivided communion where we protect all of us.

Good and gracious God,

We pray for those in immigration detention facilities in the US and abroad. Be a felt presence in their midst. We pray for those who have been deported and separated from those they love. Hold them and help them wherever they are. We pray for grieving families, loved ones, and especially the children left behind. Heal their broken hearts. We pray, also, for ICE and Border Patrol agents who are trying to put food on their own tables. They are our brothers and sisters, too.  

Good and gracious God,

Parts of your Body are not targeted right now. Forgive us our complicity with systems of oppression and separation. Forgive us our silence. Forgive us our lack of courage. Make us brave enough to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. Give each of us, O Lord, the courage of a lion and the heart of a lamb.

Amen. So let it be.

Study

The Trump administration continues its war on immigrants. When we picture individuals being arrested when they attend asylum hearings or who have been rounded up at their places of work, they want us to think of criminals who crossed the southern border, probably carrying drugs.  But that’s not an accurate picture. Here are some facts:

In the aftermath of the tragic shooting of two National Guard members by an Afghan immigrant, the administration is pausing all asylum decisions for migrants who are currently already in the US. They are reviewing the green cards that allow people from 19 countries, mostly in the Middle East and Africa (plus Venezuela), to live and work permanently in the US. (Read more here.)According to this November 28 report in the New York Times, Trump said he would revoke the citizenship of naturalized migrants and remove from the US  people who are “non-compatible with Western Civilization.” Reacting specifically to the shooting, the administration is refusing to issue visas to Afghans, plans to destroy those already printed, and will review applications already approved for refugees admitted by the Biden administration, including a much broader review than previously conducted. (Read more here.)

The circumstances facing immigrants in the US are exacerbated by a Supreme Court decision that allows ICE to profile US Americans based on the perception that they “look like an immigrant.” (Read more here.) Recently and for reasons that remain obscure, the administration has begun an “intensive immigration enforcement operation” primarily targeting hundreds of Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, including many who are currently in the process of obtaining legal status.

According to the website of the non-profit American Immigration Council (AIC) on December 4, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called on Trump to issue travel bans on “every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.” Among those being targeted are Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries. The AIC reports that administration personnel are now stating that DACA “does not confer any form of legal status in this country.” Beneficiaries may be detained and deported, and Noem and others are advising them to “self-deport.”

In one egregious example of abusive detention, a DACA beneficiary who is both deaf and mute was detained in a raid at his work site. When he attempted to explain his situation, his communication device was seized and he was held at a detention site in El Paso for nearly a month, cut off from his attorney and family and given key documents in Spanish, a language he cannot read. (Read more here.) In addition to DACA beneficiaries, Pro Publica reports that some 600 children currently  are being held in government facilities for reasons related to immigration. Up to 150 of them wound up in custody after a traffic stop.

The notorious September 30 middle of the night ICE raid of an apartment building in Chicago, dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” was aimed at Venezuelan immigrants (including children). It led to detention of 37 individuals. Many of them had no criminal records and as of November, the government had provided no evidence linking them to terrorism. It also provided no evidence of arrest warrants. (Read more here.)

On October 29, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) stated that 61,000 people were in ICE custody in late August, up from 39,000 at the end of the Biden administration. They estimated this could rise to 107,000 by January 2026 because of resources budgeted in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” including $45 billion for detention out of a total $170 billion intended to further Trump’s plan to deport one million persons a year. Individuals detained by ICE were spending an average of 44 days in detention prior to disposition of their cases, including by deportation. (This does not include those in state and local custody.) AIC reported that through September 30, there were 23 deaths of individuals in detention, the highest number since 2004. It also states that, similarly to the Chicago raid, three-quarters of those detained have no criminal convictions and many of those who do have committed offenses such as traffic violations.

MPI also notes that between January and July 2025, more than 40,000 individuals “transited” a detention facility in Louisiana. It points out that private prison companies play a central role in the detention system, including the GEO Group, which had annual revenues of $4 billion, and CoreCivic, which had revenues of $2.2 billion. Some 86 percent of immigrant detainees are held in privately run facilities with reputed issues with sanitation and clean water. (Read more here.)

Those we least imagine as potential detainees are among the nearly seven million Ukrainians who have fled their country since Russia invaded in 2022. The Biden administration invited at least 260,000 to make a new home in the US, but now at least 200,000 of them are in legal limbo because the program that welcomed them has lapsed. When that happened, one person who entered legally and has sought renewal of her status has lost her work permit and her job, as well as her health insurance. The Trump administration has stopped processing renewals of these individuals’ paperwork for “security reasons,” even though a federal judge ordered them to begin again. As of November, only 1,900 have been processed. The administration has also added a $1,000 fee per application, on top of an existing $1,325 charge. Ukrainians are experiencing detentions and being arrested at work – in construction and food delivery, as well as Uber and truck driving. One Ukrainian who attempted to take Secretary Noem’s advice to “self-deport” learned that its benefits were only available if he went back to war-ravaged Ukraine, rather than to Argentina as he had hoped. (Read more here.)

Act

• Use this link to find action suggestions at the Immigration Justice Campaign website.
• Talk to your pastor about making a plan in case immigration agents show up. Identify private areas of the church (like basements) that vulnerable people could quickly access. As listed in last week’s PSA, organize “Know Your Rights” trainings – find information from the Immigration Legal Resource Center or the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, and join or organize rapid response networks to accompany community members facing ICE enforcement.
• Make a decision now to subvert your cultural conditioning to comply with authority. Be ready to get in the way and make arrests difficult if immigration enforcement officers show up at your parish. Recruit like-minded parishioners to act with you if the time comes. (Use this link to read “US Catholics are facing an authoritarian threat. The church has been here before,” written by Maria Stephan.)
• Go to Spanish Mass (or any other-than-English mass that’s offered where you live). Show solidarity by your friendly presence. Shake hands. Meet somebody new – because there’s no meaningful allyship without a relationship.