As Trump cracks down, faith groups step up for immigrants: What has happened to our heart?'

"Catholic parishioners rushed to deliver food boxes to immigrants too terrified to leave their homes in the California city of Coachella after federal immigration agents swept through Latino neighborhoods during the summer. Just south of Arizona's border in Nogales, Mexico, Catholic nuns, laypeople and volunteers at the Kino Border Initiative, despite rising threats against aid workers, cook and serve two meals daily for immigrants who have been deported or lost their chances at US asylum in Donald Trump's crackdown."

"And in El Paso, Texas, about three dozen people from an interfaith group routinely gather outside a federal building to pray for immigrant families. The volunteers monitor immigration court hearings held inside. If their cases are denied, as most are, many immigrants face detention by US immigration agents waiting in adjacent hallways. Catholic social teaching is on the side of the immigrant, explained the Rev Raymond Riding, a Catholic missionary in Tucson, Arizona, who has been ministering to relatives of detained immigrants."

"US cities along the south-west border offer lessons to cities like Chicago, Portland and New York City on how to respond to the immigration dragnet by supporting immigrant families and protecting against what Pope Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago, called inhuman treatment of immigrants. Pope Leo, who was elected in May to succeed Francis, has said immigrants should be treated with dignity and respect and has called mass deportations a major crisis."

Catholic parishioners and faith-based volunteers deliver food and supplies to immigrants too fearful to leave their homes after immigration sweeps. In Nogales, nuns, laypeople and Kino Border Initiative volunteers cook and serve two daily meals for deported migrants or those denied asylum. In El Paso, interfaith volunteers pray outside federal buildings, monitor immigration hearings and confront immediate detention risks when cases are denied. Clergy invoke Catholic social teaching to demand dignity and protection for immigrants. Border cities have organized public rapid-response teams and quieter aid networks to support families and shield migrants from mass deportations.

Read at www.theguardian.com