Yesterday’s thought was: What is more important — what you stand for, or who you stand with? Here is one person’s response.
The Visit to a Detention Center
Walking into a detention center is a surreal experience. You hand in your driver’s license, sign paperwork, lock your belongings in a locker and pass through a metal detector with your shoes off.
No cell phone, no identification, no wallet.
My heart beat fast as we were escorted through the locked metal doors and waited to be let onto the unit where we would meet with the detainees one at a time in a small airless room.
The names, faces and stories of the people we met over the course of several days- 10 people in all- are deeply etched into my heart. This was a rare opportunity to accompany an immigration lawyer and his team as we visited two centers, one in Massachusetts and RI. We saw first-hand what conditions are like and listened to the stories of those suffering in detention…
The Center
As you can imagine, a detention center is a haunting place devoid of warmth and humanity. It seems to me it is the loneliest place in the world. It opened my eyes to just how terrible the reality of what the Administration’s policies and practices have led to…innocent people being locked away.
Families destroyed.
Human rights trampled.
Trauma inflicted over and over again.
The “Industrial Detention Complex” is in effect a harsh landscape of prison “camps” that house hundreds of people -most of them people of color -locked away in buildings wrapped in fencing and barbed wire up to the sky.
While the two places we saw were clean enough, the structures are cold and sterile looking, made of cement blocks, filled with harsh lighting that is on 24/7, few windows, endless hallways and heavy, locked doors.
The clanging of keys and the shutting of iron gates is the sound that remains with me.
The Detainees
I found out that the people we met with who are held for days or months are granted no privileges-unlike other prisoners who can take classes, etc. Folks are held in their cells-which are cages really for 23 hours a day. Maybe they get outside briefly, probably they don’t. There are no programs or classes or activities for them.
One man we met mentioned his idea of starting a group teaching others how to speak English. Our lawyer was encouraging him to do that… this activity would give him something meaningful to do and help others…
Health care, we learned, is abominable or largely non-existent. Receiving medication takes a lawyer’s advocacy and it might be weeks before one can get any lifesaving medicine for diabetes or HIV or blood pressure.
I remember sitting next to one person named Jose (not his real name) as he told his story and added that detainees aren’t allowed to receive any mail. Oftentimes the internet is down or the phones aren’t working. Jose missed his family; his kids and he started to cry when he saw the sticky note the paralegal had written after visiting his wife the week before. Even though it wasn’t his wife’s handwriting, the man held it like it was a piece of gold. It said, “We miss you; we love you.” . . .
During these meetings, we did our best to bring some humanity in with us. Smiling to guards, saying thank you, introducing ourselves, learning their names. The guards seemed friendly enough.
Our lawyer asked questions about the person’s story, their early life, how they came to this country, what they did for work now, who was in their family and considerations for possible strategies for attaining bond and release.
Everyone’s stories were complicated. Of the 10 people we met, all of them were men, fathers, partners- most had fled dangerous conditions in their home countries, crossed the border, asked for asylum, had painful family fractures and hardships. Some had been in this country for decades or just a few years.
One was still a teenager; another was a grandfather. Still another, a DACA recipient.
Comforting
I tried to be as present as possible. To offer whatever small kindness I could and to listen with care to the person in front of me as we gathered around a small table and sat in plastic chairs. Sometimes, after the interview with the lawyer, I was able to offer a kind word or a prayer. Or to put a gentle hand on a shoulder when the sobs came.
While our paralegal translated, I prayed,
Dear God, Dios Mio,
May this person be safe, May this person be released soon. May this person know how beloved they are of you and their family. Oh God. Help us! Gracias, Amen.
My meager gestures felt woefully inadequate (compared to the enormity of the fear and uncertainty of what each person was facing every minute of every day.)
Unknown Fates
One man, when presented with the reality of imminent deportation to a country he’d never been to before, hung his head in his hands and cried, “How can I go there? I don’t know anyone there?”
Often, without notice, detainees can be whisked out of New England to detention somewhere down South sent even farther away from family and connection. Where are the women? I asked. Apparently, they are sent “elsewhere” perhaps to Louisiana or Texas. If they don’t have legal counsel, locating them can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
When our time with each person drew to a close, we shook hands, sometimes hugged and a guard escorted them down the hallway. Before returning to their cells, a further humiliation awaited them- a strip search behind a makeshift curtain.
Were they being penalized for seeing their lawyer? It sure looked that way!
Believe it or not, immigration I learned is a civil matter not a criminal one. Let me say that again: immigration is a civil matter not a criminal one. The thousands who have been imprisoned and deported have been convicted of no crime. And even those who have entered illegally, the law classifies this as a civil matter, a “misdemeanor.”
Journalist Jamelle Bouie wrote recently, “Immigration detention is not a criminal procedure. And yet the Trump administration is treating it as a criminal punishment. It is using detention to inflict pain on anyone — immigrant or citizen — caught in its grasp. It is subjecting detainees to horrific conditions of deprivation and abuse, meant to pressure people into leaving the country, even if they have valid asylum claims or even legal status. And the administration is trying to expand its system of internment camps, purchasing warehouses across the country meant to hold tens of thousands of people”[1]
The Privilege of Being Free
At the end of one very long day of visits, having been inside for 5 hours, we walked out the doors to the fading sky at twilight. The pink horizon softening my ragged heart and I filled my lungs with deep breaths of air.
It hit me, the relief and the privilege of being free. Right across the street from the Detention Center was a Home Depot, a Panera and new apartment buildings. I wondered if all of those people sitting in their cars in traffic had any idea what inhumanity was taking place behind those front gates?
On the long drive home, I recalled how all of the people we met were Black or Brown folks. People of color who on this particular day were from Central America, Mexico and Haiti. . .
A Community Bearing Witness
In this season of Lent . . .one holy question to ask ourselves is how are we resisting the dangerous, false narratives of immigrants that have been presented to us and instead see and uplift the humanity and rights of individuals? . . .
It is comforting to know that we as a church community are trying everything we can to support those caught up in the midst of this Super Storm of Inhumanity. That we are learning from what communities in Minneapolis have done to support those most vulnerable.
We are in the right place as we meet this moment together!
Bearing witness to one another’s stories and lives. . .
Bearing witness to the truth of the injustices our neighbors are facing by standing up in the public square in the pouring rain. . .
How have you borne witness to the life of another? What might Love say to each of us as we try to find our way through the stormy wilderness?
Let us keep going over to the other side, my friends.
Love shall prevail . . .
By Rev. Laura Fitzpatrick-Nager (February 22, 2026, The First Congregational Church of Old Lyme) Texts: Exodus 23: 9, Mark 4: 34-41 Minor edits by Chip Filson from original text at https://fccol.org/february-22-2026-sermon/
