Amid Southern California immigration sweeps and protests, faithful come together in prayer ...Middle East

As federal immigration enforcement sweeps through areas of Southern California — spurring protests in downtown Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Bernardino and Pasadena — clergy leaders and community members across diverse religious traditions are turning to their faith in times of fear and uncertainty.

“As people of faith, we call for nonviolence,” said Yesenia Padilla, a spokesperson with interfaith advocacy group LA Voice. “Advocating for the values of Los Angeles — welcoming and protecting our immigrant neighbors who are indelible threads in the fabric of our county, in this city. We affirm the dignity of our immigrant loved ones.”

Members of different faith communities came together late Tuesday for a peaceful prayer vigil in support of immigrants held at Gloria Molina Grand Park in downtown L.A.

The interfaith vigil — co-organized by LA Voice, PICO California, the Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice and a host of pro-immigrant groups — was “the faith community’s response to militarized, coordinated ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids; a call of prayerful peace,” organizers said.

The peaceful service — which was over before the 8 p.m. downtown L.A. curfew issued Tuesday evening by Mayor Karen Bass — included prayer, songs of praise, and the lighting of candles around the park and civic center area. People were invited to bring symbols of their faith tradition and photos of immigrant family members, to have them blessed and lifted up.

The solemn evening called for faith communities to stand together amid growing immigration raids and actions across the Southern California region. People representing Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and other faith traditions gathered peacefully, echoing calls to stop ongoing ICE operations as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Jesuit priest Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, East L.A’s renowned gang intervention and rehabilitation program, led the service in an opening prayer.

“We stand here in prayer, with our sisters and brothers who are frightened and terrified, and are just trying to live their lives and provide for their sacred families,” Father Boyle said. “We will not abandon you. We stand in prayer — that as you are demonized, we stand with you. If you are seen as disposable, we stand and declare that we will not forget you. We stand with a vision that brings us together and unites us with the God of love, who loves us without measure or regret; remembering and joining you in your struggle.”

L.A. Archbishop Jose H. Gomez thanked people for coming to the rally “in a spirit of prayer,” and said a special prayer to Mary, “Our Lady of the Angels.”

“Our country was founded on the belief that every man and woman is created with human dignity and human rights — that comes from God, and can never be denied. This beautiful belief is what makes America great,” said Gomez. “We are praying tonight for the good people of this city; for those we work and go to church with, for our families and children. For police and all those who put their lives on the line to keep our community safe, and for our leaders in Washington — that they come to the realization of the importance of immigration reform.”

“Immigration is about more than politics; it’s about us, it’s about what kind of people we want to be, what kind of country America is meant to be,” he added.

L.A. Mayor Bass also spoke at the vigil, decrying the ICE raids and calling out leaders in Washington D.C.

Bass prayed over L.A. and neighboring cities, praying for guidance and strength, “as we face an unprecedented moment to obey the law of the land, while protecting the lives of Angelenos who seek to earn an honest living, educate and care for their young, and live in peace and freedom.”

“A city of many peoples is our Los Angeles — many religions, traditions; a marvelous mosaic where even our differences are part of our strength,” she said. “It is our refusal to give in to violence and retaliation. We will fight for all Angelenos regardless of when they came here, where they were from, or how they got here.”

Jennifer Gutierrez, a United Methodist Church minister in L.A. and the executive director of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), said before the prayer service that it was crucial to combat the false narrative — shared by President Trump — that there is rampant violence happening in L.A. Protests have been largely peaceful, Gutierrez said, and it’s important to keep things that way — for people to be able to safely, peacefully express their right to assemble.

“In this moment, any perception of violence in Los Angeles is going to be an excuse to send more law enforcement… (it’s) more likely to escalate an already tense situation,” Gutierrez said. “We’re out here because our faith calls us to be. It gives us a vision of the type of world we want to build, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would say. Our faith gives us courage to respond; it calls us to do what we need to do to make that happen.”

Gutierrez urged faith communities to come out to CLUE’s regular prayer vigils in front of the ICE field office in downtown L.A. The open vigils are joined by “mothers, aunties, women looking for their children… it’s women of faith who give voice to those taken from us,” she said. She also encouraged law enforcement members to join, because “some of them may be people of faith and conscience as well.”

CLUE works with different faith communities and pro-immigrant organizations across Southern California, offering resources such as know-your-rights trainings, rapid response hotlines for reporting ICE activity and arrests in Los Angeles and Orange County, accompanying families and individuals in immigration courtrooms, and a Detained Immigrant Bond Fund.

Rabbi Sharon Brous, founder of L.A. Jewish community IKAR, quoted the late civil rights activist and politician John Lewis in her remarks, calling for people of faith to stand together.

“The person who oppresses — and the one who witnesses the oppression, but remains silent —  is the same. The moral message is clear: we do not accept the world as it is; we respond to cruelty with courage, to hatred with love, and more love, and more love. When we rise together in protest of the violent, unlawful raids on our communities,” Brous said, “it is fueled not only by theological instinct, but by lessons learned by our own communities’ experiences with persecution and pain.”

Brous also condemned the recent detention of Torrance Elementary fourth-grader Martir Garcia Lara and his father, whom ICE officials said would be deported to Honduras.

“Our conscience calls us to act — our faith, our history, our broken hearts, calls us to act. At some point it becomes necessary to use our bodies to help redeem the soul of the nation. That time is now.”

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