Faith Leaders Demand Texas Hold ICE Accountable

Over 30 religious leaders from across the state gathered at the Capitol on Wednesday, July 22, for a news conference to address the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE agents in Houston earlier this month and to demand the governor and Legislature assert their power over federal immigration operations. 

On July 15, Gov. Greg Abbott spoke about the killing for the first time, saying that Texas Rangers would work alongside federal law enforcement to investigate the shooting.

Organized by Texas Impact, an interfaith advocacy network, leaders spanning denominations spoke about the recent actions of ICE, invoking both the Bible and historical comparisons to differing degrees. The organizers mentioned multiple changes that they hope to see.

The advocates called for clear, enforceable limits on use of force from ICE. “The use of lethal force against a human being is a great matter that must never be shielded from accountability,” said Abel Vega, from the Rio Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. “And when it occurs in our streets, in our neighborhoods, and in the presence of our children, it demands not silence but a full public reckoning.”

They are also pushing for ICE agents to wear visible identification and active body cameras, and to provide prompt, direct, and compassionate notification to impacted families when these incidents occur. Salgado Araujo’s family learned of his death via social media.

“A father was killed on a Houston street on his way to a construction site, and then his citizen children learn of his death, not from an official, but from a video circulating on social media,” Vega added. “This is a moral wound to our whole community, and we will not look away from it.”

They also want the state to conduct independent oversight of ICE operations; a moratorium on 287(g) agreements – arrangements that allow state and local police to conduct immigration enforcement – and to review, license, and regulate every residential facility operating in Texas.

“Videos of young kids in immigration court by themselves, bewildered and judges questioning, are haunting. All this is against our religious beliefs and our moral principles that this country claims,” said the Rev. Jim Harrington of St. James Episcopal Church in East Austin. “[ICE agents] cannot defend themselves by claiming they’re following orders. Following orders is never a justification in the Christian tradition, nor international law, to perpetuate evil.”

Harrington also spoke about the church’s role in activism, comparing the agency’s actions to Nazi Germany. “Our commitment is to work with government when we can, change government when we need, and resist government when it does not respond,” Harrington added. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered by the Nazis, said, ‘We are not to suddenly bandage the wounds of the victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself,’ to stop the machine of injustice. Going one step further, our job as religious leaders is to commandeer the machine.”

Bettie Forman, a representative of the National Council of Jewish Women, also spoke about the Holocaust. “Different methods were used, but it was the same reasoning. And this is the way it started – exactly what’s happening here,” she said as the heads behind her nodded.

“We were all immigrants at one time,” Forman told the Chronicle. “They’re part of our community, and what we see happening is illegal and immoral, and we just need for it to stop.”

Over two dozen faith-based leaders of numerous political and religious beliefs came together that day to urge those in the state with the highest power to take action; to speak out against ICE’s efforts; to implement changes to the agency’s conduct; and to choose compassion over cruelty.

“We invite our representatives in the Legislature, so many of whom claim to be Christian, to reject ICE violence and restore peace in our communities,” said the Rev. Dan De Leon of Friends Congregational Church in College Station. “We implore our state lawmakers to repent from the ideology of cruelty and dominance and to turn toward a theology of compassion and hospitality.”

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