Earlier this year, I went to New York City for a ministry trip where we prayed with people and gave out food through a food distribution center in Queens. While I was there, I was able to talk to quite a few immigrants who expressed what the current Trump regime has meant for their lives.
One Ecuadorian man came and asked for prayer for his friend who was picked up in Newark. He had taken his car to the mechanic and was walking to work when ICE detained him. He has three children and a wife whose lives have been upended. He had been in the country almost 20 years.
Will McCorkle
Another woman from Venezuela who was volunteering hours of her time every week to help with the food distribution talked about the fear she and everyone else faces. She is in the asylum process but has to check in with ICE every three months. Every time she needs to check in, she talks about how she cannot sleep the night before because she is afraid she will be detained.
I also talked to a family from Venezuela with two young children. They had made the long trek to the U.S. in 2023, crossing the Darien Gap, and had to sleep on the streets throughout Latin America. Three years later, they are trying to get enough money to go back. The man had been involved in a serious work injury and was not compensated nearly enough.
He had his appointment with the judge, and they said he needed three months to “produce evidence” of why he deserved asylum. He said that he like many Venezuelans did not have direct “proof.” He was not a politician or activist, but a father who was trying to flee from the violence and instability. In Trump’s vision, that is not enough to be considered for asylum. Now this man wants to leave the U.S. because he is afraid our government will lock him up and tear him away from his family.
Another elderly woman from Ecuador was in tears as she said her daughter was upset with her as she was going to self deport because of everything going on. The family must have known they might not see each other for a long time, if ever.
New York compared to some places — like where I live in South Carolina where law enforcement works with ICE — is relatively safe for immigrants, but the fear and terror of the Trump regime is real.
Of course, it is not just Christian immigrants facing these struggles, but I think it is important to highlight that the majority of immigrants in the U.S. who are being pursued by ICE are Christians. Of course, it is the Christian nationalism of Trump and the GOP that is leading to their persecution. People have decided that members of their same faith are disposable if they are “undocumented” or even if they are seeking asylum through the available legal channels.
I worked with quite a few people on the team who had come from more conservative backgrounds and many who had probably voted for Trump. However, it was hard for them to look away when they heard the stories. The simplistic xenophobia and “deport them all” language become more complicated when it is an immigrant family with young children in front of you.
For anyone who has not lost all their soul to the growing xenophobia, there is a tension between the political ideology and the humanity. Although many have fallen under the spell of anti-immigrant rhetoric, most Americans are not as hateful as Donald Trump, Stephen Miller or Nancy Mace. Most are waking up to the fact that what we are doing is not only morally wrong but is deeply damaging our future as a nation.
Will McCorkle serves as an education professor in Charleston, S.C., and is a board member with Practice Mercy Border Ministries. He writes on the topics of immigration, peace and faith.