By Gregory Bull
SAN DIEGO (AP) According to one organizer, roughly a dozen religious leaders from the San Diego region went to federal immigration court on Friday to observe proceedings as some cases related to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement are heard.
Related Articles
-
Court blocks Louisiana law requiring schools to post Ten Commandments in classrooms
-
Federal judge blocks Trump effort to keep Harvard from hosting foreign students
-
Police in northeast Ohio arrest man who allegedly menaced GOP US Rep. Max Miller on interstate
-
Judge asks if troops in Los Angeles are violating Posse Comitatus Act
-
Supreme Court rejects toy company s push for a quick decision on Trump s tariffs
Federal immigration agents have made some arrests of migrants at the court. According to the group’s chief organizer, Jesuit priest Rev. Scott Santarosa, the visitation’s main goal is to give participants a sense of presence.
Santarosa, the priest of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in San Diego, noted that people are yearning for religious individuals to walk alongside vulnerable migrants. Although we can observe arrests, our aim is not to stop them.
Prior to the visit, a Mass was held at the Catholic Cathedral in San Diego, where bishops and other clergy members, including Bishop Michael Pham, the group’s top official and one of the first bishops appointed by Pope Leo XIV after his election as pope, offered prayers for migrants and refugees on World Refugee Day. As a young boy from Vietnam, Pham arrived in the United States alone, making him a refugee himself.
A diocese-wide request to organize World Refugee Day activities, including each church hosting a Mass to pray for migrants and refugees, gave rise to the concept for the court visit, according to Santarosa.
According to the priest, he expects that going to court will benefit the migrant communities in the San Diego area, including both recent immigrants and those who have lived there for decades but lack legal status.
According to Santarosa, they feel like others want them to vanish. He also mentioned that a woman stated to him in Spanish: “Papa, we feel like we were hunted, like we were animals.”
Lilly Endowment Inc. provides financing for the Associated Press’s partnership with The Conversation US, which supports its coverage of religion. This content is entirely the responsibility of the AP.
