NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) — Amid the recent killings of two immigrants by immigration enforcement agents, around 100 religious leaders from across the country staged a protest outside the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center on Monday (July 13) afternoon, demanding the closure of the privately run facility over what they say are inhumane conditions.
The protest, chiefly organized by Faith in New Jersey, came after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, were fatally shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents; for about a year, there have been recurring protests outside of Delaney Hall.
Marching to a chain link fence outside the facility on Monday, clergy in collars, yarmulkes and taqiyahs affixed banners with the image of a monarch butterfly to the barrier and tied multicolored ribbons to another gate featuring dozens of names of immigrants, including Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old who died last year shortly after being detained in Delaney Hall.
“They are in the colors of the monarch butterfly to demonstrate that migration is beautiful and that transformation can occur at any moment,” the Rev. Robin Tanner, president of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association and a minister who helped organize the protest, said. She explained the immigran …
