Dear Friends: Today, local and national news outlets are reporting that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will begin rounding up migrant families who have received deportation orders early on Sunday morning in Chicago and other major cities. It is expected that these raids will also result in the arrest of many undocumented immigrants who have…
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ: More than a year ago, life changed dramatically for immigrants and refugees living in the United States. Immigration policy became harsher, deportations increased and families, including Episcopalians in our own congregations here in the Diocese of Chicago, began living in unprecedented fear. Now the crisis has spread. On our…
Life changed for the members of Spanish-speaking communities in the Diocese of Chicago after the election of Donald Trump. “As a Latino/Hispanic clergy and person of color in the United States after the election, I have been reminded again and again that some people think I don’t belong here,” says the Rev. Victor Conrado, associate…
Trinity Episcopal Church, Aurora, is a small congregation with a big ministry. Most Sunday mornings about 25 to 30 people gather to worship in the stone church. But during the week, more than a hundred find comfort and support in the ministries offered there. In recognition for Trinity’s work, the Episcopal Church’s Jubilee Ministries recently…
Dear People of God in the Diocese of Chicago: These are urgent times for Christians who seek to follow Jesus by loving our neighbors as ourselves. Today, we learned that more than 800,000 young people brought to the United States as children before 2007 are at risk of deportation if Congress does not pass legislation…
Bishop Lee, Bishop Sally Dyck of the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church and Bishop Wayne Miller of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have issued a letter on the new federal immigration enforcement guidelines issued last week by the Department of Homeland Security: Dear Sisters and Brothers…
