Detroit archbishop leads procession to protest ICE policies

Archbishop Edward Weisenburger of Detroit led a procession of clergy and lay Catholics the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on 14 July to call for the agency to stop instilling fear in the immigrant community and revise its policies accordingly.

Weisenburger, who was installed as archbishop on 18 March, has a long record of support for migrants and opposition to the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies from his previous tenure as Bishop of Tucson, Arizona.

The new archbishop led the group in prayer before the procession. “Heavenly Father, You are the source of all life and light. You call us to reverence your presence in all those we meet, but most especially the poor, the needy, the troubled, and the immigrant,” Weisenburger prayed. “Be with us today as we spiritually accompany those who are suffering and frightened. Make firm our resolve to reveal and uphold their dignity as your beloved sons and daughters.”

The procession in Detroit comes as other bishops are accompanying migrants at court houses where ICE agents have arrested those trying to regularise their legal status are making court-ordered appearances.

In Washington, DC Congressman Michael Guest, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement, indicated that Catholic Charities was not being targeted in his subcommittee’s investigation of NGOs that Republicans accuse of “providing services or support to inadmissible aliens during the Biden-Harris administration’s historic border crisis”.

Guest, a Republican from Mississippi, said that “Red Cross, Catholic Charities, Samaritan’s Purse, Doctors Without Borders” are not being investigated because they collect money privately to undertake their work. He said the investigation is only aimed at organisation’s that rely almost exclusively on government funding.

The ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, Congressman Bennie Thompson, also from Mississippi, noted that a statement from Guest’s office had indicated they were targeting religious groups like Catholic Charities.

“Republicans falsely accused Catholic, Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist, Evangelical, Muslim and secular charities that feed, clothe, and aid the needy of having ‘supercharged the business model of cartels’,” Thompson said. “That is a slanderous accusation and fringe conspiracy theories with no basis in reality.”