Priests, nuns, faith leaders protest ICE actions outside Chicago field office

CHICAGO (WGN) — As Mayor Brandon Johnson was defending Chicago’s sanctuary city status at a congressional hearing focused on immigration policies, a group of priests, nuns and lay leaders were gathering in protest outside the Chicago field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The midday Ash Wednesday gathering was organized by the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership in protest of the arrests, detentions and deportations ICE has carried out since the start of the second Trump administration.

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The coalition is a group of about 40 Chicago-area churches. A couple dozen members gathered in prayer with signs and to chant outside the office near West Ida B Wells Drive and South Clark Street, their concerns centered on the way people have been rounded up.

“To participate in this system to carry out the Trump administration’s orders, to do what they are doing, ICE and (Department of Homeland Security) agents must consciously and unconsciously choose to dehumanize our communities, our families and our loved ones, and see them as illegals and criminals,” said Fr. Larry Dowling. “To do so reduces the …. human dignity and divinity of our communities and our sisters and brothers.”

Part of the group’s goal was to deliver a letter to the Department of Homeland Security to request a meeting about the recent arrests but participants were told they couldn’t come into the building. 

“I went in to present the letter. They said they’d send someone out to meet us. So we went outside and they locked the door on us,” Dowling said.

After about a 40-minute wait, the letter was taped to the glass of a door. Board president Anthony Williams was ultimately allowed to make the delivery but it was not clear if and when the requested meeting will happen.

Still, Williams said he was remaining hopeful the group’s message would be heard.

“It is not necessary to crash into people’s homes and places of worship and take them out,” he said. “We are a country of immigrants and we need to act like it.”