DETROIT, MI — In a setting usually reserved for prayer and reflection, Detroit faith leaders on Wednesday transformed the Cathedral Church of St. Paul into something closer to a courtroom, delivering a forceful moral prosecution of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and demanding Congress revoke the agency’s funding before an impending February 13 deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
Surrounded by interfaith clergy wearing red stoles — a visual signal of alarm — speakers accused ICE of operating with unchecked power, inflicting routine family separation, and enforcing immigration policy in ways they argue violate the basic moral commitments of faith, human dignity, and community stability.
Their verdict was clear: ICE, as currently structured and funded, is doing more harm than good — and lawmakers who continue to bankroll it are complicit.
“No more federal immigration agents roaming our neighborhoods,” one speaker declared from the altar. “No more money for ICE.”
Allegations of Harm, Not Public Safety
Faith leaders rejected the premise that ICE’s aggressive enforcement model improves public safety. Instead, they argued it criminalizes daily life, destabilizes neighborhoods, and spreads fear far beyond undocumented residents — chilling school attendance, healthcare access, and cooperation with local authorities.
Pastor Ben Adams of All Together Campus Ministry offered firsthand testimony, describing a student whose parent was recently detained and deported.
“This is not law enforcement protecting families,” Adams said. “This is the state actively tearing families apart.”
Clergy framed ICE’s actions as systemic, not incidental — arguing that family separation is not an unintended consequence but a predictable outcome of enforcement-first policy choices.
They called on Congress to reallocate ICE funding toward healthcare, childcare, housing stability, and education, asserting those investments would do far more to strengthen communities than raids and detention.
Direct Call for Civil and Political Resistance
Unlike symbolic protests, Wednesday’s gathering laid out an explicit roadmap for resistance:
Pressuring local governments to cease cooperation with ICE
Establishing ICE Watch networks to document enforcement actions
Flooding congressional offices with demands for zero ICE funding
Organizing sustained public demonstrations
A virtual town hall scheduled for Wednesday evening is intended to escalate public pressure and convert moral outrage into coordinated political action.
Lawmakers Push Back — and Draw Sharp Rebuttal
Republican lawmakers Rep. Lisa McClain and Rep. John James responded with statements warning that defunding ICE would allow violent criminals to remain at large. McClain framed the issue as a binary choice between enforcement and chaos, while James emphasized support for law enforcement officers tasked with removing “violent criminal illegal aliens.”
Faith leaders rejected that framing as legally imprecise and morally misleading, noting that the vast majority of people affected by ICE enforcement are not violent criminals, and that equating immigration status with criminality distorts both the law and reality.
“This narrative is used to justify blanket enforcement,” one organizer said. “But fear is not evidence, and punishment is not policy.”
Congress on Notice
With DHS funding negotiations reaching a critical juncture, Detroit’s faith leaders delivered a stark warning: continued funding of ICE without structural reform is, in their view, an endorsement of policies that fracture families, erode trust, and undermine constitutional values.
“This is not a theological disagreement,” one speaker said. “This is a question of accountability.”
As Congress approaches its deadline, the message from Detroit was prosecutorial, deliberate, and unapologetic: Defunding ICE is not radical — it is, they argue, a necessary corrective to a system they say has been allowed to operate without sufficient oversight, restraint, or humanity.
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