As an interfaith organization, we recognize the profound value of interfaith cooperation - especially on matters of human rights and social justice. We know that diverse faith communities must collaborate on issues where it is possible to find common ground.
Sanctuary: Toolkits, Articles, and Other Resources
Inter-Faith Resources
Sanctuary Not Deportation: A Faithful Witness to Building Welcoming Communities
Becoming an Immigrant Welcoming Congregation: The Journey is Made by Walking (UCC)
Immigration Raids Rapid Response: For Faith Allies; inspired by Sanctuary in the Streets from New Sanctuary Movement Philadelphia
Sanctuary Movement in the Trump Era: New Strategy and Tactics in the Post-Election Reality
Neighbor to Neighbor Toolkit (for meeting with members of Congress), from the Interfaith Immigration Coalition.
Recent Raids and Cuts to Refugees: Faith Community Response (3/13/17 webinar slides, Interfaith Immigration Coalition)
Rapid Response Guide for People of Faith & Moral Conscience - Revolutionary Love Project
"Sanctuary, Basic Rights, and Humanity's Fault Lines: A Personal Essay", by Jim Corbett
"Searching for Sanctuary: An Analysis of America’s Counties & Their Voluntary Assistance With Deportations", by Lena Graber & Nikki Marquez - Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Dec. 2016
Other Resources
Community Defense Zone Starter Guide from MIJENTE
Refugee Council USA 2017 Post-Election Toolkit (Visits with Local, State, and National Leaders to Welcome Refugees)
Immigration Syllabus: Essential topics, readings, and multimedia that provide historical context to current debates over immigration reform, integration and citizenship; created by immigration historians affiliated with the Immigration History Research Center and the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, produced online by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing and eLearning Support Initiative
"Sanctuary Cities," Trust Acts, and Community Policing Explained - American Immigration Council
National Map of Local Entanglement with ICE, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Dec. 19, 2016
"Insecure Communities: Latino Perceptions of Police Involvement in Immigration Enforcement", by Nik Theodore, Department of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, May 2013
"The Effects of Sanctuary Policies on Crime and the Economy", by Tom K. Wong, Center for American Progress, Jan. 26, 201
St. Louis / Missouri Resources
The Economic Impact of Immigration on St. Louis, Jack Strauss, June 2012
State Refugee Profiles, Refugee Council USA
Impact of Immigration on St. Louis Region: presentation of the New American Economy findings prepared by the Mosaic Project
Looking Back to Look Forward: Lessons from the Immigration Histories of Midwestern Cities, Rob Paral, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Sept. 2017
Videos:
Check out this fabulous mini-presentation on "Framing Data to Tell a Better Story", offered by Dr. Marisa Gerstein-Pineau of the FrameWorks Institute, during a webinar hosted by the Immigrant Learning Center, which was titled "Immigration, Safety and Security", on Oct. 4, 2017.
Helpful Websites:
Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice: resources page
Sanctuary Not Deportation: resources page
Summaries, FAQs and helpful legal analysis from PennState Law: Immigration After the Election page
Excerpt from "White Ain't God"
“As a powerful but vain imagination, white supremacy attempts to imprison God to whiteness. In a white supremacist framework – God has a white sentence without parole. While confined, God must look white, talk white, think white, affirm white, bless white, and value, above all things, “his” own image made in whiteness. White supremacy attempts to hold the very God of the universe in chains – theological, liturgical, spiritual, creedal, geographical, social, emotional, and political…
…The normalcy of white supremacy makes acceptable and praiseworthy the sociopathic systems, institutions, and governments that name white supremacy as privilege, merited, and or the favor of God. Failure to undermine, expose, and disrupt the patterns of white supremacy that are part and parcel of our shared life ensures the persistent undue suffering of ALL creation.
For people of faith, what does it say that in 2016 we still [perpetuate] the illusion of a white Jesus in our christian imaginations? What does it say that our churches would have a fit if we pulled down our white Jesuses and white saints and white cherubims and angels as an act of repentance? That doing this would shake the very foundations of our churches is proof that we have a problem. This is not about nostalgia and honoring the [heritage], this is about understanding the ways that white supremacy has decimated the human family. This about acknowledging our need of repentance, reformation, and salvation. We all need to be saved from the evil of white supremacy and the ways it has [hijacked] our conception of God and one another.”
Source: “White Ain’t God” by Nick Peterson from RadicalDiscipleship.net
St. Louis Faith Community Joins National #ElPasoFirme Vigils Tonight
St. Louis Faith Community Joins National #ElPasoFirme Vigils Tonight. A group of local people of faith and good will from a handful of congregations and organizations will gather tonight, responding to the call from national groups including Refugee And Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), and the Poor People’s Campaign, to reaffirm our commitment against white supremacy, xenophobia and hatred.
Excerpt from Mujerista Theology
“Our participation in the act of salvation is what we refer to as liberation. It consists of our work to transform the world. Liberation is both cause and effect of the struggle to have a love relationship with others, including God. Now, there can be no salvation without liberation, though no single act of liberation can be totally identified with salvation in its fullness. As Gustavo Gutierrez has said, ‘Without liberating historical events, there would be no growth of the Kingdom…we can say that the historical, political, liberating event is the growth of the Kingdom and is a salvific event; but it is not the coming of the Kingdom, not all of salvation.’ …
To struggle against oppression, against alienation, is a matter of an ongoing personal conversion that involves effective attempts to change alienating societal structures. This personal conversion cannot happen apart from solidarity with the oppressed. But why are the poor and the oppressed those with whom we must be in solidarity? Why does overcoming alienation demand a preferential option for the oppressed? The reason is not that the poor and the oppressed are morally superior. Those who are oppressed are not personally better or more innocent or purer in their motivations than the rest of us. The preferential option at the heart of solidarity is based on the fact that the point of view of the oppressed, ‘pierced by suffering and attracted by hope, allows them, in their struggles, to conceive another reality. Because the poor suffer the weight of alienation, they can conceive a different project of hope and provide dynamism to a new way of organizing human life for all.’ This contribution, which they alone can give, makes it possible for everyone to overcome alienation. The preferential option for the poor and the oppressed makes it possible for the oppressors to overcome alienation, because to be oppressive limits love, and love cannot exist in the midst of alienation.”
Source: Mujerista Theology by Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz (Orbis Books, 1996), pages 90-91.
Interfaith Letter Opposing DHS' Harmful "Remain in Mexico" Policy
IFCLA is honored to be a signer organization of this letter in opposition to the Department of Homeland Security’s Harmful “Remain in Mexico” Policy. Thank you to our national partners at CLINIC, Interfaith Immigration Coalition, and Church World Service for organizing this opportunity.
Background
The administration continues its attacks on vulnerable asylum seekers arriving at our southern border. It's latest plan, the Remain in Mexico Policy, requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their asylum cases are pending in the U.S. immigration courts. This policy exposes asylum seekers to great risk of harm, curtails their access to counsel, and does not present a solution to the root causes of Central American migration flows.
Welcome to the Border, Mr. President
Sr. Norma Pimentel, a sister of the Missionaries of Jesus and executive director of Catholic Charities for the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV), wrote this open letter to Trump ahead of his visit to the border.
Press Advisory: Interfaith Press Conference & Faith Dialogue
St. Louis – Faith leaders en route to the tent prison in Tornillo, TX., where immigrant teens are being detained, will hold an interfaith press conference and “diálogo de fe” (faith dialogue) event at Christ Church United Church of Christ in Maplewood, Missouri, on Monday, November 12 at 6:30 p.m. to demand that all immigrant families be reunited.
San Óscar Romero and Immigration Reform
This weekend, the Catholic Church celebrated the canonization of Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, who has for decades been popularly recognized as a saint for the poor and marginalized. This 2017 article details American Catholic efforts to use Archbishop Romero’s legacy to engage in the struggle for just immigration reform.
Considering Colonization
It is important that we continue to assess our role in decolonization, anti-racism, faith, truth-telling, the impacts of colonization and the ways we contribute to continuing oppressive systems and more. This article presents a recap and guide to a series of conversations to help us reflect deeper on these issues.