It was a rainy Ash Wednesday and first day of Ramadan, but that didn’t stop dozens of interfaith clergy from across Connecticut from gathering outside the ICE field office in Hartford for a peaceful prayer rally.
“We are here to call on ICE agents to turn from their violence and to return to their humanity, for their sake and for our sake and for everybody’s sake,” said the Rev. Allie Perry of Shalom United Church of Christ in New Haven, wearing a pin reading “ABOLISH ICE.”
“We are here in the spirit of humility and compassion, crying out for – indeed, demanding – justice for all,” Perry said.
Herb Brockman, rabbi emeritus at Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden, blew a shofar. He said the sound of the ceremonial horn was meant to invoke the weeping of a mother who’s lost a child.
“Think of the weeping. Think of the sadness,” Brockman said. “When you hear the sound of the shofar, let us all think about the families that have been disrupted, that have been torn apart.”
Clergy took turns reading from a letter, signed by more than 200 Connecticut faith leaders, addressed directly to ICE agents and employees.
“We have observed the terror you have brought to the communities we serve, and indeed, the terror you have sown in communities all across the country,” the letter reads. “We have observed the tactics you have used to disappear moths and fathers into a system of labyrinthine prisons and camps. We have seen what you have done to children. We have observed the cruelty you have visited upon ordinary U.S. citizens who dare to speak out or to criticize you.”
“Most chilling of all, we have observed the execution of individuals who have defied you,” it continues. “And we wonder: Who are you who hide behind those masks? What life experiences have brought you to a place where you are willing to inflict this kind of trauma and pain on other people, to visit terror upon your neighbors?”
“Now is the time for turning,” it continues. “Now is the time for returning. It is not too late. We ask you to lay down your arms. We invite you to open your arms to the love you were meant to have, to the love you were meant to be.”
The Rev. Scott Marks of New Haven Rising also directly called on the ICE agents inside the Abraham Ribicoff Federal Building to examine their consciences.
“Your life is worth more than the cruelty that you are being asked to carry out,” Marks said. “We invite you today to a season of turning, to reconnect with your heart, and to remember that the person you are detaining is your brother, is your sister, is your neighbor.”
The Rev. Darrell Goodwin is the executive minister for the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ. He spoke in thinly veiled metaphor about the need for light and salt to melt frozen water.
“I need you to say the words with me: ‘I am salt and light,’” Goodwin said. “I want you to mean it so much that you believe you can encounter ice and it will melt.”
“Because our world needs it. Children need it. The Black and brown people who are suffering need it. The folks who are going to be captured need it,” Goodwin said.
Clergy ended their rally by giving one another blessings in the form of ashes and water, and committing to the fight to end injustice.
“We have heard God's call, and so we are here now to shout out with one unified voice: stop the cruelty and the inhumanity,” Perry said. “Love is the only way.”
