Bonnie and David Freeman wore big buttons of FAITH.
The Bay Ho residents, both 81, joined as many as 70 volunteers Monday at the launch of a new ministry in the 1.4-million Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego.
Their buttons — proclaiming “Faithful Accompaniment In Trust & Hope” — is a program to make sure refugees and asylum seekers are not alone at immigration hearings.
Spurred by June’s World Refugee Day event — where Bishop Michael Pham and other clergy saw masked ICE agents “scatter” at their immigration court presence — ministry organizers unveiled a calendar for sign-ups and held an orientation.
Outside the chapel of the diocese’s pastoral center, the Freemans — former English-as-a-second-language college professors in Texas and Central California — called the effort “extremely important.”
“All our lives,” Bonnie said, “we’ve been working with immigrants and we know them as people and we care about them and we know they care about this country and they care about the work they do and they’re proud, wonderful people.”
She added: “Once you get to know these folks, you hate to see the way they’re now being treated — it’s just criminal to us.”
The Freemans have taken part in their parish — Our Lady of Guadalupe — feeding immigrants.
Now volunteers include a wide variety of faiths — Episcopal, Lutheran, Church of Christ, Unitarian-Universalist, Church of the Nazarene, Jewish and Muslim, said the Rev. Scott Santarosa, also of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish.
Auxiliary Bishop Ramon Bejarano said a prayer and sprinkled holy water on volunteers after newly installed Bishop Pham shared hopes for the new ministry, the region’s 13th.
“This is history in the making … something beautiful and mighty,” Gloria Morales-Palos told the chapel audience. She’s co-chair of the San Diego Organizing Project board, the activist group whose executive director — Dinora Reyna — first suggested clergy show up at immigration court on World Refugee Day.
Reyna, born in the United States to Salvadoran immigrants, spoke Monday as well, noting the contrast of how the federal government depicts immigrants against her experience of asylum-seekers wearing their Sunday best at immigration court.
Pham, the first Vietnamese-American named to lead a diocese in the United States, stood among volunteers and news media and said the idea of the ministry was hailed by the vast majority who contacted him.
“We want to make a difference because each of us have value and dignity,” he said. “In communion, with each other we are stronger.”
He ended his greeting to volunteers on “the mission that God has entrusted to us” with “Is that good? Is that helpful?”
Asked his message to Catholics who in November backed Donald Trump, and the GOP candidate’s vow of mass deportations, Pham said he didn’t know their mindset but that now, seeing the human persons involved, “they might make change.”
He said he received only “a couple” of notes opposing the practice of accommanying migrants to court, “but 90%” were supportive of their “walk with the people.”
And what if ICE agents don’t pull back again — and continue making arrests?
“Obviously, living here, we gotta follow the law,” Pham told Times of San Diego. “We do as much as we can. The next time, we ask the U.S. Bishops Conference to be more vocal in pressing this issue. … Maybe in the mass presence [of clergy] throughout the country, that can be helpful.”
Pham said the widely covered June 20 event at the San Diego federal bulding moved clergy in nearby Orange County to accompany immigrants at court.
“They, too, walked with the people,” he told reporters. “They wanted to see what we had done and how beneficial that was. So other dioceses are beginning to participate.”
ICE and DHS didn’t respond to my requests for comment.
Santarosa said Pope Leo didn’t have to sign off on the ministry but expected the new American pontiff to hear about it.
“I think he does have eyes and ears that relate this kind of information to him,” Santarosa said. “So I’m very certain that he’s also going to be aware of this as well.”
Leading a downstairs orientation was Yolanda Crystal Felix, managing attorney at the American Bar Association Immigration Justice Project.
Felix narrated a PowerPoint and answered questions basic and sophisticated — from “Will we be standing all the time?” (Not if you’re in court) to whether anyone has legally challenged the fact that immigration judges and prosecuting lawyers work under the same Justice Department.
One volunteer asked if an underground railroad existed for immigrants being deported to be sent to their home country instead of some unfamiliar third nation. (Felix wasn’t aware of any such effort).
Much of orientation was describing the makeup of the immigration system and which agencies did what. Felix noted such things as a new $100 fee to apply for asylum (filling out Form I-589 — something immigrants must do within a year of entering the United States).
No families have been arrested in San Diego, Felix said, but fathers have been taken from their spouses and children.
But Felix conceded that the Department of Homeland Security has been dodging traditional legal norms and seeking dismissal of cases for the sake of “expedited removal” — and no day in court.
“Congress allowed the expedited removal process to exist,” she told a rapt audience. “It’s a system created that is … not due process.”
Morales-Palos is in charge of the calendar for clergy and laity, scheduling people from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (via three shifts a day) Monday through Friday at the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building on Front Street.
“This is God’s will,” she said of the ministry. “This is possible because God allows it to be possible. At least people will not be alone. They will feel supported.”
Immigrants can find companions the day of their hearing or be paired with someone via an online form or hotline.
“For me, it’s a dream come true,” Morales-Palos said. “I know what it feels like to be in the shadows. … I know how desperate people are.”
Imam Taha Hassane of the Islamic Center of San Diego took part in the June 20 event and signed up to be a companion six or seven times this month.
“This is a call based on my own faith tradition … to always stand and support the vulnerable people,” he said. “We preach everything good from the pulpit. Now it’s time to put these words into action.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
