PITTSBURGH (RNS) — On an unseasonably warm, drizzly Friday morning in early January, nearly 200 people of faith stood outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood, singing religious songs and praying. Some wore yarmulkes, and others wore clerical collars and held posters depicting Mary, Jesus’ mother, being detained by ICE agents. One sign read: “Who Would Jesus Deport?”
“I’m here because Renee Good cannot be here, and her mother and daughter are weeping,” said the Rev. De Neice Welch, executive director of the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network, referring to the woman killed a few days earlier by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. “I’m here because my faith drives me, my God compels me, and my Scriptures remind me that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
In between verses of “This Little Light of Mine” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the Rev. Dave Swanson, a pastor at Pittsburgh Mennonite Church, reminded attendees that Good was killed less than a mile from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020.
“We reclaim that ground as holy ground,” he said, reading from the liturgy written for that day’s vigil.
Demonstrators raise arms as they receive a blessing from the Rev. De Neice Welch at the U.S. Immigration an …