On the morning of Christmas Eve, more than 150 people bundled up in jackets and gathered in the parking lot for a worship service outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Burlington, Massachusetts.
“I’m really hoping that we can sing loud enough that even in the interior, windowless rooms, where people are, that they’ll be able to hear and know that they are not forgotten,” said Sarah Blumenshine, director of intercultural ministries at the Emmanuel Gospel Center in Boston who greeted people at the service.
The Mass Council of Churches organized the service, offering parts in Haitian Kreyol, Spanish, English and Portuguese.
The Rev. Dave Woessner, the congregation coordinator, said ICE has not responded to their requests to provide spiritual care to people in custody but that they have let them congregate outside the building.
“This facility is a place that says that message, that says you’re not welcome here, there’s no room for you, right? And they break up families, they take people,” Woessner said, adding that he showed up Christmas Eve to fulfill the message of his religion. “There is room, that you are welcome, you are loved, that the love that unites us together has no bounds.”
Participants sang songs as people came and went from the immigration building across the street. Even with the holiday, it was business as usual at the facility.
Inna Babasiyeva walked out of the center with tears streaming down her face. Her Christian family fled Azerbaijan to avoid religious persecution. For more than 20 years, Babasiyeva has brought her uncle to the ICE facility for routine check-ins, but today, she was shocked they detained him. And on Christmas Eve, she wasn’t sure how she would break the news to her family.
“I think that’s what we should do as people, stand up for each other,” she said of the people who gathered outside. “But it’s like us going against the devils. That’s how I feel.”
