The Chicago faith leaders who resisted Trump’s immigration raids

Throughout last fall and the early part of winter, the city of Chicago felt like a war zone. In retrospect, those difficult weeks offered a preview of what would happen in Minneapolis just a few weeks later. Military transport helicopters flew overhead throughout the day and night.

Heavily armed federal agents marched down Michigan Avenue wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles. In what the Trump administration termed Operation Midway Blitz, more than 3,000 people were reportedly detained or arrested by ICE officers and other agents of law enforcement. Many of those people still languish in detention centers, while many more have already been deported.

More affluent and majority-white neighborhoods, in general, were spared these experiences. In those areas, daily life proceeds largely unchanged. But numerous U.S. citizens have been caught up in the administration’s mass deportation dragnets, which clearly seem to involve racial and ethnic profiling: Skin color, surname, accent and language are treated as prima facie evidence that a person may be undocumented and subject to immediate removal.

Public opinion research has repeatedly shown that white Christians are Donald Trump’s most loyal and enthusiastic supporters, although the irony is obvious: At least on the surface, the president’s mass deportation policies would seem to violate core Christian teachings about care for the vulnerable and the stranger.

In Deuteronomy 10:19, the command is explicit: “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus frames that obligation in personal terms.

“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Those who refused to help the poor, the sick and the vulnerable, he says, have injured him: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” But the Christian right does not have a monopoly on Christianity in America.

For many liberal and progressive Christians across a wide spectrum of denominations, standing up against the Trump administration’s widespread persecution of immigrants is a moral obligation, a profound duty of faith and conscience. In the darkest weeks of winter, when Chicago was most under siege by Trump’s forces, I reached out to Christian clergy members across the city who had become part of the active resistance. These faith leaders came from diverse backgrounds, varying faith traditions and different parts of the city: I spoke with two female priests from a predominantly white liberal Episcopal church, a leading spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and a white Presbyterian minister with a multiracial congregation who made headlines after being shot in the face with pepper balls during a protest.

I also spoke with the leader of the Black Christian organization Live Free Chicago-Live Free Illinois, and a young pastor — also a theology professor and Emmy award-winning musician — who has been trying to bring the Black and Latino communities together around principles of linked fate and shared struggles. Suzanne Wille: “We are chasing ghosts.” I first saw the Rev. E. Suzanne Wille’s name on an open letter signed by a wide range of Christian clergy members in Chicago.

Its title was striking: “Jesus Is Being Tear Gassed at Broadview,” a reference to the ICE detention facility in a western Chicago suburb. Wille is rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in the North Side neighborhood of Ravenswood, known for its historic homes, tree-lined streets, vibrant arts scene and craft breweries. The Broadview processing and detention facility has become locally and nationally famous as the subject of lawsuits, investigations and public outcry over the treatment of detainees.

Last November, a federal judge ordered Trump administration officials to improve the “inhumane” conditions at Broadview. I next saw Wille’s name on a letter to the editor in the Chicago Tribune, arguing that moral outrage on its own was not enough to confront the great harm being caused by Trump’s mass deportation campaign in the city, and by implication, across the United States.

“This is a hard time,” Wille wrote, “but there is one concrete thing we can do: stand together, get trained to be an effective witness, show up when we can. If masses of people are trained as rapid responders, every occurrence of fearmongering and violence could be met with nonviolent, courageous witness. We can all play a part in keeping our city, our country, brave and free.

And in doing so, we keep our hearts soft and courageous, too.” Between her pastoral work and her activism on the ground, she wasn’t easy to track down. I emailed Wille and got an apologetic response a few days later.

After we had scheduled an introductory phone call, she wrote again: “Well, we just got back from a rally in our neighborhood with hundreds of people protesting ICE going into a neighborhood daycare center and abducting one of the teachers and terrifying other teachers, children, and parents.” When we finally connected, Wille wanted to make clear that she doesn’t see religious faith as a requirement when facing a “moral crisis” like this one. But it definitely helps, she said.

“If you don’t have some ethical and moral framework — it doesn’t have to be from a religion — you will be lost and swept away by this. People need some type of grounding.”

She continued, “None of this is normal, and it’s deeply frustrating to watch the media — and political leaders who should know better — refuse to speak about it in moral terms.”

She added that Christianity and faith don’t just belong to “the other side,” meaning, of course, the evangelical right. Wille told me that a parishioner in the largely Hispanic neighborhood of Logan Square had called her recently because federal agents were throwing tear gas canisters from their SUV in an attempt to mask their escape after being confronted by angry residents. By the time she got there, Wille said, the damage had been done.

Local residents were “circling the school, trying to protect the students. It is like I am doing emotional triage on some type of battlefield, right here in my own city,” she explained.

“I feel like we are chasing ghosts. Just a few minutes before ICE was here, and now we have to pick up the pieces.” Like the other clergy members I spoke with, Wille talked frankly about managing the emotional and spiritual toll of this work.

“You have to recharge,” she said.

“I fill up my hope tank with walks, prayer, friends and the arts. Going to museums and taking in that good energy. The quiet times are so critical to balance out all the noise and negative energy.

We can’t run on empty, or we will not be able to keep going.” David Black: “My Bible says 365 times, ‘Do not be afraid’” Rev. David Black leads the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago in Hyde Park, a congregation that describes itself as “progressive” with “traditional theology,” and also as multigenerational, multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural. On Sept. 19, Black joined a group of clergy and activists outside the Broadview facility.