At San Mateo Episcopal Church in Hyattsville, Maryland, this Christmas doesn’t seem to always have been this way. Posadas, a traditional celebration in Latin countries in which María and José’s search for accommodation before the birth of Jesus is recreated, cannot be carried out abroad, as has always been the case. The event, which includes food and singing in a festive atmosphere, will be hidden from passers-by for the first time. “We will have them inside the houses, we cannot do anything outside,” laments Father Vidal Rivas. The reason is that Customs, Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) agents are in trouble. In a neighborhood where migrants of Spanish origin abound, the incursions of ICE or the threat which seem to have left scars.
Rivas has witnessed the damage the anti-migrant campaign launched by Donald Trump’s administration has had on its supporters. “We continue with a lot of fear and in one week, 13 people from our church self-expelled,” he says. Three others were deported by federal authorities and several were detained in ICE centers.
Following the new self-imposed rules of not carrying out any activities outside, the traditional procession of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which should have been celebrated for several months, was canceled. At the service at Inmaculada Concepción held last month alone, 60 people showed up, the majority of what Father Vidal expected. “The Christmas celebrations were joyful and had a greater participation. Today, only 40% of the people who had come before” are coming.
Until Trump’s timely return to the White House, churches, along with hospitals and schools, were considered “sensitive locations,” meaning they were protected from messages from immigration agents. Nothing more to occupy the Despacho Oval, however, the Republican has lifted the veto so that there is no place that ICE cannot access. Since then, when Father Rivas celebrates his services, there are people, always Americans, planted in the park and outside the church. Monitor the arrival of agents to alert if a draft is going to be produced.
“La Nochebuena and Dia de Navidad are very important closing days, feast days when people come to the temples. A lot of people are worried about this time of year and can get to their places of worship safely. At the end of the day, they have to get off the bus or the car, walk along the acera and enter the church. We are trying to decide whether they should attend religious services this year, whether they should participate in the celebrations of the same way as they usually do during these holidays.
He said many people will choose to attend services virtually where they are celebrated that way. Since the veto on detentions in sensitive places was lifted, many churches have facilitated this modality. The absence of the community environment that creates the temple, however, discourages many. Father Rivas tried to give catechism classes virtually and even mass, but sometimes he did not participate. “If we continued to mass online, we would have broken it,” he said.
Temples are looking for ways to protect themselves from ICE networks. In some cases, surveillance is carried out from the outside; Meanwhile, the happiest turn to shield the winds during service. They must ask the American faithful to help them in the acts, so that the race of the participants remains more discreet. “People’s faith is incredible, because the decision to go worship is a high-risk decision, not only as an immigrant, but also as a Latino,” says Pastor Julio Hernández, who directs The Congregation Action Network, a network that organizes Catholic and Protestant churches in the Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia area.
“The shadow of the threat (of the arrests) is felt very strongly. Not only in the atmosphere of the Christmas holidays, but also in poverty, because now work is decreasing,” he says. “We know a single mother who used to work a full day in a restaurant and had to spend hours there because people weren’t eating. The community has fewer resources to party,” he adds.
The government’s migration offensive has sparked strong criticism among religious communities. Pope Leo XIV, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and clergy from different religious traditions have spoken out against the government’s migration program. Several churches protested through the belenes that decorate temples at this time of year.
That’s how I heard a church in Optimist Park, in Charlotte, the Carolina del Norte city where Trump sent the Border Patrol last month to step up immigration detentions. In the belén on display this week, masked immigration agents, with bulletproof vests and brides in hand, intertwine with the figures of Jesus, María and José. The church’s pastor says the goal is to show the fear many migrant families feel after recent detentions. “The goal is to disturb, to make people feel something,” said the Rev. Andrew Shipley. “What happened to the families of Charlotte is disturbing, shocking and horrific. »
The beautiful scenes with messages of denunciation were produced in several places in the country. The feligores of the Catholic parish of Santa Susana in Dedham, Massachusetts, set up a birth in the place that corresponded to María, José and the Child Jesus; there is a sign that says “ICE is here”. The bottom is crowned by a cartel that says: “¿Paz en la terra?” “. The Archdiocese of Boston requested its removal, but the Rev. Stephen Josoma refused, arguing that each year highlights social issues in contemporary life. “We know that Jesus was born under the occupation of the Roman Empire and almost immediately fled to Egypt from political violence. So we have to ask ourselves: What would it be like if Jesus were born here today?” I said.
Also provocative is the beautiful display at Lake Street Baptist Church in Evanston, Illinois, where María and José appear with gas masks. The Reverend Michael Woolf wanted to denounce the use of tear gas by immigration agents against demonstrators who were protesting in Chicago against the terrible conditions in which they kept them in detention.
The parallelism between the biblical story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth and the reality of migrants in the United States will mark the sermons of many churches this Christmas. “When we think about the story of a baby who was born and over time had to leave his or her home country for safety reasons to go to a foreign country, it’s a familiar story to many of our immigrant brothers across the country,” Royster says. “Yet even today they feel threatened in the place that was supposed to be their refuge, fearing torture, detention or deportation to this country, which was precisely the place where they should have found safety.”
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