Chicago Clergy Resist ICE With Bread, Prayer, and Gas Masks
In a scathing letter, over 250 Chicago faith leaders tell ICE to repent.
MORE THAN 250 PRIESTS, PASTORS, RABBIS, and SEMINARY LEADERS across the Chicago region have signed an open letter condemning Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for violent crackdowns on peaceful clergy-led demonstrations at the Broadview detention center.
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The signatories describe a scene of escalating brutality, where clergy offering bread, prayer, and communion are met with tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and physical assaults. “Can I use my pastoral expense account to buy a gas mask?” one pastor asked their board, capturing the surreal collision of faith and state power.
“Jesus is Being Tear Gassed at Broadview”
The letter, pointedly titled “Jesus is Being Tear Gassed at Broadview”, argues that the teachings of Jesus and the example of Martin Luther King Jr. demand nonviolent resistance to unjust laws. “What Kristi Noem and her ICE agents are doing is immoral,” the clergy write. “They aren’t arresting criminals; they are arresting our neighbors.”
ICE agents, the clergy allege, have detained children at bus stops to lure their parents, abducted congregants in unmarked vans, and turned Chicago’s immigrant communities into targets of fear. Businesses are shuttered, children live in hiding, and worshippers are dragged away from church steps into detention.
King’s Jailhouse Words, Christ’s Beatitudes
The clergy draw a direct line from King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail to the present crisis, stressing the moral duty to resist unjust laws. They also cite the Sermon on the Mount as a call to action. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you,” Jesus said. “If he were living today, we believe he might add ‘pepper spray, body slam, and arrest you’ to his beatitude,” the clergy write.
Quoting Matthew 25, they frame ICE raids as a direct assault on Christ himself: “When our friends and congregants are kidnapped, forced into hiding, torn away from their families—those things are happening to Jesus in real time.”
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A Call to Repentance
Despite their denunciations, the letter closes on an invitation to repentance—directed at both the Trump administration and ICE officers. “They can put away their assault rifles and bully sticks. They can give up their pepper spray and rubber bullets. They can choose not to do this, cross to the other side of the fence and join us for communion. It’s not too late to repent.”
Signatories Across Denominations
The clergy list spans Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, rabbis, seminary deans, and leaders of Chicago’s interfaith community—from Highland Park to Rogers Park to Evanston. Signers include Rev. Quincy Worthington of Highland Park Presbyterian, Fr. Brendan Curran of The Resurrection Project, Rev. Dennis R. Edwards of North Park Theological Seminary, Fr. Don Nevins of Chicago’s Catholic Church, Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina, and Rabbi Brant Rosen of Tzedek Chicago, among hundreds of others.
A Rare Moral Consensus
For a city long fractured by politics, the letter represents an unusually unified voice from the pulpit. More than 250 clergy have chosen to put their bodies on the line at Broadview, invoking scripture as shield against state violence. Their message to ICE is unambiguous: Jesus stands with the stranger, and Chicago’s churches will not abandon their immigrant neighbors.
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What is the name of the officer in charge at Broadview? The conduct of the frontline officers is his responsibility, and he should be publicly held to account for it.