By Heather Schlitz
BROADVIEW, Illinois, Feb 19 (Reuters) - For the first time in six years, two priests and a nun escorted by police have walked past barbed wire and concrete barriers to enter a Chicago-area immigration facility to give communion and ashes to detainees after a judge ordered faith leaders be allowed inside.
Catholic priest Paul Keller recounted the shocked and tear-stained faces of the immigrants at the facility on Ash Wednesday. His hands stained black from distributing ashes, Keller described it as a bittersweet moment after a months-long court battle to gain access to the facility in order to minister to detainees.
Clergy had not entered the Broadview facility west of Chicago since the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020, according to the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership.
"We're dealing with what should be a very non-controversial issue, which is praying with people who are detained and providing them some comfort," Keller told Reuters. "It's unfortunate that it's happening because of a lawsuit."
During the Trump administration's months-long operation last fall dubbed "Midway Blitz," armed and masked federal agents fanned out across Chicago and its suburbs to detain immigrants the administration accused of threatening the safety of Americans. Agents tear-gassed residential neighborhoods, arrested protesters, used Tasers on people during violent detentions, pointed guns at residents and shot two people, including one fatally.
Many of the more than 4,200 people who the Department of Homeland Security said were detained were packed into the Broadview facility for processing, sometimes sleeping on the floor amid overflowing toilets, plaintiffs said in a lawsuit.
For months, protesters gathered outside the facility, chanting and cursing amid the staccato cracks of pepper balls and tear gas grenades from immigration agents hitting the ground. On Wednesday, it was quiet except for the sounds of the faithful praying the rosary and singing hymns.
On Ash Wednesday, people receive ashes smeared in the shape of a cross on their foreheads as a symbol of repentance, and the holiday marks the beginning of Lent.
'WE HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN ABOUT THEM'
Pope Leo, who grew up outside Chicago, and other Catholic leaders have emerged as fierce proponents of immigrant rights during U.S. President Donald Trump's crackdown, and in an impassioned homily at a nearby church, Chicago Archbishop Blaise Cupich stressed the humanity of immigrants.
"God does not need papers to know where you are or who you are," Cupich said. "When you cry in secret, he sees you. When you work hard for your children while no one is watching, he sees you. He sees you when you sacrifice your own comfort to send money back home."
Thousands of people carrying rosary beads, pro-immigrant signs and candles gathered for the Mass after the priest and nuns left the Broadview facility.
It followed the same structure as any Catholic Mass, with Bible readings, swells of singing from the thousands of attendees and plumes of incense — but it also included prayers for immigrant families, special blessings for those whose loved ones had been detained and petitions for the souls of Silverio Villegas Rodriguez, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the three people killed by federal immigration agents in recent months.
"It's letting immigrants and people in Broadview know that they're not alone and that we haven't forgotten about them,” said Kamila Chavez, a student at Loyola University in Chicago in attendance.
Access to the facility marked a victory for residents who have been deeply traumatized by immigration agents, said Reverend David Black, a Presbyterian pastor in Chicago who was pepper-sprayed and shot in the head by a pepper ball by federal agents at Broadview in October. On February 13, a judge ruled that preventing religious leaders from accessing the facility was a burden on their right to exercise religion.
“Ash Wednesday is a day that we remember that we are dust and that we will return to dust,” said Rev. Black. “It's a day that Christians remember that the empires of this world rise out of ashes and fall back into ashes.”
(Reporting by Heather Schlitz. Editing by Emily Schmall and Deepa Babington)
