WHEN MIGRANT JUSTICE EMERGES FROM THE SWAMP

Photo Credit: David Moreno

Entering the United States without authorization is a civil offense equivalent to running a red light. This becomes a crime when a person who has been deported previously, crosses the border again without permission.

The indiscriminate persecution and kidnapping of immigrants as they leave their immigration appointments, at their workplaces, schools, and parks has become commonplace. Added to this is their disappearance and subsequent transfer to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador without due process, as well as the abrupt invalidation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of immigrants. These events are not the result of a sudden increase in crime on their part, but rather a cruel strategy that uses their bodies as scapegoats to confuse and control minds and hearts in the face of increasing militarization of the streets and the lives of Americans.

Presbyterian Congresswoman Kathy Castor recently said at a public meeting on immigration in Tampa, Florida, that “the government is playing on the fears and prejudices of Americans.” Even though the Trump administration threatened to deport criminal immigrants during its election campaign, and former President Obama deported even more people during his time in office, the cruelty of recent days has not been seen since the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

“Apparently, we are all in a state of temporary protection,” said African American Reverend Norm Hatter, coordinator of the Tampa Bay Presbytery's Racial Equity Committee, when he heard pastors' testimonies about what is happening in our Latino congregations. Many people are no longer coming to church for worship or seeking food; others arrive fearful after their pastors have had to learn how to protect them. This has been happening since the Trump administration revoked the Protected Areas policies (1), which limited the presence of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in religious centers, schools, and hospitals. Today, there is no protected place.

Pastor Hatter is no stranger to racial discrimination. During his childhood, he witnessed the “Black codes,” where black people could be jailed just for talking too loudly in the company of white women, for staring carelessly at white people, for being unemployed, or walking near railroad tracks. At that time, even though other civil rights laws prohibited discrimination based on skin color, laws were created to keep black people controlled, vulnerable, and exploited as cheap labor. In those days, slavery no longer existed officially, but prisons, then filled with “offenders,” became the new source of unpaid workers. This is still happening today.

Today, human rights organizations such as the ACLU, LULAC, and others denounce how the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is systematically detaining, without due process, people of color who arrived legally in the United States, have the right to work, and are not criminals. After the groups filed a lawsuit before a federal judge in California and succeeded in getting him to rule in favor of preventing ICE from detaining and arresting people in the city of Los Angeles based solely on their appearance, language, or place of work, the government requested the intervention of the Supreme Court and succeeded in getting it to rule in favor of continuing with these types of arrests, thus allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to continue carrying out discriminatory operations.

Interfaith group chants: “We reject the lie that these cages keep us safe! We reject those who profit from detention! We will not be complicit!” Photo Credit: Neddy Astudillo

While the Church is still divided on how to respond to the current violation of immigration rights and discrimination against immigrants, in Florida, community and religious leaders began gathering in August to hold vigils in front of a detention center on the ancestral territory of the Miccosukee people (known as Everglades National Park), called together by the voice of an indigenous woman, Betty Osceola.

In this detention center, pejoratively called “ Alligator Alcatraz,” cruelty and beauty, faith and struggles for migration, racial, indigenous, environmental, and climate justice converge.

Allied congressmen and lawyers describe the reality of a place that should be called a concentration camp, due to its overcrowding, the confinement of people in cages, bathrooms that flood when it rains, lack of medical care, and no safe space to meet when legal aid arrives for the detainees.

Environmental groups protest that instead of investing in efforts to adapt and protect one of the country's most vulnerable places in the face of the climate crisis, the government decided to use millions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to build the center. This was done without conducting environmental impact studies, without prior consultation with the Miccosukee community, or taking into account the endangered species already living in the swamp.

Fixated on an androcentric idea of a detention center surrounded by alligators, the government poured 800,000 square feet of pavement over the area and brought in generators to light up the nights, with light visible up to 30 miles away, disturbing the ecosystem of Florida's protected bats and panthers, as well as the Miccosukee community living just 10 miles away.

The government created its perfect storm. The Miccosukee and environmental groups joined forces in a lawsuit against the national and local governments, citing the irreparable damage this center poses to the fragile ecosystem that is also their home. While on August 27, a federal judge confirmed the order to dismantle the site within 60 days, an appeals court later suspended the ruling. Therefore, the struggle to close the detention center continues.

Even if the detention center is eventually closed and the swamp remains under the care of the Miccosukee, the need for racial and immigration justice for the 3,000 people the government seeks to deport every day remains latent, as long as the priority is to continue building new detention centers and there is no will to move toward an immigration reform that would give permanent status to the 12 million immigrants who already live and work in the country.

As long as the hunt for migrants continues, the mobilization of people of faith and their allies cannot stop. Solidarity and organization among diverse sectors must be strengthened, as in the case described in the swamp; it must become clearer, more audible, and more active. The fate of the panther, indigenous peoples, migrants, black and white communities is closely linked, and there is power in action when we unite.

During the vigil on the Sunday before the federal judge's ruling regarding the detention center, Nick Carey, organizer of Faith in Florida, said:

"We reject white Christian nationalism... Although our current struggle is against the Trump and DeSantis administrations, we must also recognize that this detention center is the culmination of more than 100 years of U.S. foreign policy. Trump has given free rein to ICE, which grew stronger and larger under both the Biden and Obama administrations. We must seek solutions! We must aspire to more ambitious solutions that do not fall short, until we achieve the liberation of all people! We may not know how to solve it, but let's figure it out together."

In the words of young poet Rose Cervantes, also present: ”I don't have to do this alone. Liberation is collective!"

Spanish Version available by clicking here. 

(1)  National Immigration Law Center (NILC), "Factsheet: Trump’s Rescission of Protected Areas Policies Undermines Safety for All," 26 de febrero de 2025,  https://www.nilc.org/resources/factsheet-trumps-rescission-of-protected-areas-policies-undermines-safety-for-all/

​Rvda. Dra. Neddy Astudillo
Eco-theologian
Coordinator of the Climate Justice and Faith Spanish program at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary

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About the author: Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo is a Venezuelan eco-theologian, a PCUSA pastor and coordinator of the Climate Justice and Faith Certification program at Pacific Lutheran Seminary.