After legal fight, Chicago clergy bring spiritual care to ICE immigrant detainees

For those involved in the campaign, the agreement represents both a practical change and a symbolic development.

"It's a victory. We're extremely happy," said Jesuit Fr. Daniel Hartnett, who has been participating in the ministry effort for the detainees. "What we're doing is actually very legal, but we had to struggle to get the law implemented."

Hartnett, a jail chaplain in Chicago, said he has entered Broadview approximately four times since the agreement took effect. Because clergy and volunteers rotate responsibilities, he said teams have quickly formed to maintain a daily presence.

Michael N. Okinczyc-Cruz, CEO of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, said immigrant members themselves played a central role in shaping the campaign to allow religious leaders access.

"This movement has been led by immigrants from the very beginning," he told the National Catholic Reporter. He said immigrant organizers helped lead religious processions and coordinate public Masses and demonstrations.

"At a time where they have an abundance of reasons to live in fear and to live in the shadows, we witness their faith, their courage, their persistence," he said.

Okinczyc-Cruz also pointed to ongoing efforts of religious leaders to make this access, particularly the Mercy sisters JoAnn Persch and Pat Murphy. The two died last year, but their weekly presence outside the facility over 10 years was "the building block" to current immigrant advocacy work for broader access there. Since visits began at Broadview under the new protocols, clergy members said they have encountered detainees facing a wide range of emotional circumstances.

Scalabrinian Fr. Leandro Fossá, who said he has visited repeatedly in recent weeks, said he has  seen individuals transferred from other facilities as well as people detained locally.

"I've seen people that are brought in and they have the opportunity to call their families, and then they are removed to another facility," he said.

He also described meeting people detained while attending immigration-related appointments.

"We saw people that were picked up here in town going to court," he said. "These people were respecting their due process."

Fossá said many of those he met appeared uncertain about why they had been detained.

"I see people who don't understand exactly what is going on," he said. "They don't know the reasons why they were picked up, but they know that they have respected what the court has asked them to do."

Clarentian Fr. Paul Keller described similar impressions.

"The situation there is one of shock and confusion," Keller said.

He said the individuals he encountered did not fit the simplified public narratives about  immigration detention.

"These are some of the people who make the country great," he said. "These are people who are coming and contributing and keeping their families together and working hard."

The new agreement permits approved sacramental ministry and religious services, and clergy members said those visits have included prayer, Communion, confession and anointing.

Keller recalled one recent gathering involving 11 men in a communal prayer service and reflection, followed by a blessing, and the opportunity for confession. After the larger group departed, he said, clergy spent additional time with a young man from Guatemala.

"He teared up and began crying during the prayer service," Keller said. "A feeling of being dead, kind of emotionally, spiritually dead, and feeling that that prayer brought him to life again."

Hartnett said he observed changes during the visits themselves. In earlier encounters before the agreement, he said detainees were frequently restrained with hand and ankle shackles. He said clergy later requested modifications during pastoral sessions, which were later granted.

He described recent meetings where participants could sit together and introduce themselves.

"You could see the tension kind of disappearing slightly from the people," he said.

Although many remained visibly worried, he said the atmosphere often changed during the sessions. "The fear in their faces turned into a kind of a smile," he said.

For Fossá, the most important aspect of the visits has not necessarily been religious ritual itself. He described one particularly difficult encounter involving distressed detainees who had been unexpectedly held at the center. "It took us two hours to calm them down," he said.

Some worried about families depending on them, while others struggled with uncertainty about what would happen next, he said.

"They don't need answers," Fossá said. "They need to be listened to."

The agreement will remain in place while the federal litigation continues, with the court requesting an update later in early July.

Felician Sr. Jeremy Midura, a board member of the coalition and part of the group  visiting the ICE detainees, said the agreement is a move in a positive direction recognizing the immigrants' right to receive care.

"We are simply human beings meeting another flesh and blood human being, and individuals in detention must be treated with human dignity," she said.