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Rev. Alex Santora ascended to the pulpit of the Church of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, looked out at the people gathered beneath stained glass and soaring gothic columns that were created largely by Irish immigrants in the 19th century, and told a story of a local immigrant in modern times.
The man came from Cuba more than 40 years ago, started a business and raised a family. But he had gotten into some minor legal trouble in the 1980s. And this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement came for him. He had to close his business, lay off his workers, and leave the country.
“In the last 10 months, we’re hearing about a lot of pain, people whose lives are abandoned and ruined, and not just a few,” Father Santora told parishioners at the church in Hoboken, N.J., during mass on Saturday evening.
In humble rural churches and tall urban cathedrals across the country this weekend, Catholic priests and parishioners reflected on the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. Some said that the roundup of hundreds of thousands of people, which has disproportionately affected Catholic congregations full of immigrants, goes against Christian teachings.
Just a few miles from Our Lady of Grace, said Father Santora, about 1,000 immigrants were being held in a detention center. “This is not what Jesus Christ would want,” he told his flock. “It’s immoral.”
The Trump administration says that its immigration enforcement campaign will break deportation records by the end of the year. Teams of agents, often using military-style equipment, have raided factories, construction sites and apartment blocks and detained people at schools, churches and big-box stores.
