Two stories are playing out in the United States amid ongoing raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) targeting alleged illegal immigrants, according to bishops and clergy of The Episcopal Church who have participated in mobilizations across the country in response.
On the one hand, Episcopalians—who, like Canadian Anglicans, are members of the worldwide Anglican Communion—describe a climate of fear and repression in communities targeted by ICE due to increased deportations under U.S. President Donald Trump. Bishop of Minnesota Craig Loya says the U.S. government is “conducting a reckless and cruel campaign designed to intimidate and instil fear.”
Bishop of Washington Mariann Budde, who served for 18 years as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, Minn., says even before ICE agents killed legal observer Renée Good on Jan. 7, Minneapolis residents told Budde “story after story of people being dragged out of their cars, people’s houses being broken into, parents being picked up as they were dropping their kids off at daycare.”
On the other hand, Episcopalians have joined their communities in powerful mobilizations against ICE raids. In Minnesota, which became a flashpoint after the ICE killing of Good—followed by the killing of nurse Alex Pretti on Jan. 24—Loya highlights “the story of our diocese and our state responding by mobilizing for love. There are these vast networks of care that have formed all across Minnesota and Episcopalians, lay and clergy all around the diocese, have been a critical part of those networks.”
The Anglican Journal spoke to Episcopalians in the dioceses of Minnesota, Washington and Los Angeles who described participation of church volunteers in rapid response teams, tracking and observing ICE in their communities; in mutual aid networks, providing food and legal and financial support to migrant neighbours and driving them to work to avoid being detained; and even church safety brigades guarding the entrance of preschools.
Tens of thousands of people in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, including hundreds of outside faith leaders such as Budde, participated in a Jan. 23 day of action that saw major work stoppages and hundreds of small businesses close in what The New York Times called a general strike—the first in the United States in 80 years. A large interfaith protest at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, from which many flights deporting immigrants take off, resulted in the arrest of approximately 100 clergy.
Dean Jered Weber-Johnson, rector of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in St. Paul and regional dean of the East Metro Mission Area, was among those arrested at the airport, which he calls “part of the deportation machine.” He describes the movement against ICE as “a moment for the church to speak with moral clarity.”
Dean Katherine Lewis, rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Minnetonka and dean of Minnesota’s West and Central Regions, who was also arrested and charged with trespassing, says the protest required a great deal of organization and preparation. Clergy gathered on Jan. 23 amid record-breaking cold of -29 °C. They chanted, sang, and said the Lord’s Prayer, holding signs with images of people ICE had abducted.
Each protester also carried a slip of paper in their pocket, printed with the name and information of a person they were to represent as part of their prayer and public witness. Police arrested many clergy as they knelt and prayed.
“The extreme cold, the singing, the media, the public presence … for me personally, it was kind of a mystical experience,” Lewis says, adding, “Something holy is happening here.”
Canadian primate offers solidarity and prayers
Archbishop Shane Parker, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, published an open letter on Feb. 6 to Bishop Sean Rowe, presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, and all Episcopalians in the United States. Parker said it was “heartbreaking for us, your northern neighbours, to watch the growing unrest” south of the border.
“We have seen and heard alarming stories of aggression, intimidation and harassment toward targeted communities and individuals, and the dehumanization of those perceived to not belong,” the primate said. “We have seen images of violence, brutality and even death for those willing to challenge these actions and call out for justice.”
“We have also seen the ways your church has acted with faith and resilience in response to the call of the Gospel to serve those in need, welcome those who seek hospitality, feed the hungry and challenge those who abuse power,” he added. Anglicans in Canada, Parker said, were praying for and upholding Episcopalians as well as full communion partners in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Moravian Church in North America.
Trump has called the influx of illegal immigrants an “invasion” of the United States and repeatedly described them as criminals, arguing that mass deportation is necessary to restore “law and order.” In a December 2023 campaign appearance, he said undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”.
In June 2025, the president ordered what he called “the single largest mass deportation program in history” and directed his administration to “put every resource possible behind this effort.” ICE raids in Los Angeles that month led to mass protests. Bishop John Harvey Taylor of the Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles, speaking at a prayer vigil outside city hall, condemned the raids.
After Trump’s first election in 2016, the diocese formed its Sacred Resistance ministry, which it says seeks to “open our congregations and communities to provide sanctuary for anyone targeted by state-sanctioned scapegoating” and to engage in “peaceful action towards ensuring recognition of the dignity of all people.”
Sacred Resistance ministers, Taylor says, have led training throughout the diocese on “knowing your rights, knowing when it was possible to say to ICE that they couldn’t enter private space.”
“We felt the eyes of the world on Los Angeles,” he says. “I think history will disclose that the people of our community, while unstinting in their fraternal support for the immigrant worker community, did not give Trump the narrative of violence he wanted … Then he began to look elsewhere, and we know the consequences of that.”
Mutual aid networks proliferate in Minnesota
In December 2025, Trump deployed thousands of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol officers to Minneapolis and St. Paul to apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants. The operation saw an escalation of ICE tactics, including harassment and threats to observers, and has resulted in the detention of U.S. citizens and at least 3,000 arrests.
When ICE moved into the Twin Cities, Loya says, they encountered a population that had organized “networks of care, of advocacy, of resistance, of witness” after the 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which gave rise to the largest mass movement in U.S history.
“There is probably not another city in the United States that [was] better prepared … When the current ICE occupation began, we didn’t have to build all of those networks,” Loya says. “In a lot of ways, the work that happened after the murder of George Floyd was simply reactivated and reignited in this moment.”
For the diocese of Minnesota, Loya says, “the epicentre of our efforts at supporting immigrants and resisting what’s happening” has been Casa Maria, a feeding ministry based at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield. Begun during the COVID-19 pandemic as an effort by the largely Spanish-speaking congregation of St. Nicholas to deliver needed food items, Casa Maria eventually grew to a walk-in food shelf and clothing closet that feeds an estimated 95 households per week.
Archdeacon Rena Romero, ministry developer at Casa Maria, says immigrants from Mexico and South America make up a large portion of those who frequent the food shelf. Many members of St. Nicholas, including volunteers who run Casa Maria, are also immigrants.
When ICE raids began, Romero says, immigrants stayed home and the food shelf saw fewer people. In response, Casa Maria began organizing food deliveries. The number of deliveries per week, she says, immediately rose from 12 to 53, and then to 350 the following week. “We’re feeding more people now than we ever have … once word got out that we were a place you could trust with your name and address.”
Many immigrant neighbours were also afraid to go to work, she says, since being pulled over for a traffic violation could result in detainment and deportation. Not going to work meant risking losing one’s job and facing eviction due to not being able to pay rent. Volunteers from St. Nicholas and supporting congregations therefore began driving people at risk to and from their jobs.
Casa Maria has also referred people to attorneys through the Minnesota Council of Churches. The Episcopal Church in Minnesota has established a Migrant Support Fund, with donations paying for legal and rental assistance.
Romero describes an “outpouring of love and compassion in the community” as mutual aid groups sprang up amid the ICE raids, bringing new people through church doors. “Our church is way more connected to the neighbourhood now,” she says.
Weber-Johnson’s parish has also seen increased food deliveries, along with teaching how to avoid monitoring by ICE agents, who track both food distribution centres and people delivering food. Parishioners at St. John the Evangelist, which has a preschool, even formed safety brigades to watch the entrance for ICE officers.
“One of the ways that rapid responders and constitutional observers have been deployed is to self-organize into battalions of parents and caring citizens standing in front of schools, ready to protect children who are coming and going, because children have been targeted in this process,” Weber-Johnson says.
Episcopalians in other parts of the country are undertaking similar efforts. In the Episcopal diocese of Washington, church volunteers provide accompaniment to check-ins with ICE and its surveillance program, the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, as well as to immigration court appointments. Congregations are also supporting family members of people who have been detained—from providing rides and delivering groceries to basic financial support for rent and living expenses.
“For those of us in the faith world, it’s really about walking with our neighbours,” says Michelle Dibblee, interim missioner for equity and justice, who helps support these efforts in the diocese of Washington.
‘As Christians, we obey the law of love first and foremost’
Asked how he would respond to the argument that ICE officers are simply enforcing the law, Weber-Johnson says Christians have often fought against unjust laws. He says the Trump administration is selectively enforcing laws and points out that ICE uses methods which are themselves illegal, such as entering homes without judicial warrants and denying people due process.
“As Christians, we obey the law of love first and foremost … Everything else is subsidiary to that law for us,” Weber-Johnson says. Jesus’ greatest commandments, he adds, were to “love the Lord your God with all your heart” and to “love your neighbour as yourself.”
Taylor contrasts Christian nationalism in the United States with the message of Jesus, which he says “ruled out cruelty for cruelty’s sake.” Loya says Christians must be “clear and unambiguous” in pointing out how Christian nationalism “is a corruption of the good news of Jesus.”
Budde—who delivered the homily at the interfaith prayer service for Trump’s 2024 presidential inauguration, in which she asked him to “have mercy on the people in our country who are scared right now” including immigrants, refugees and LGBTQ+ people—says Christian leaders must “embody a vision of the gospel and a vision of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, in such a way that we actually look and sound like Jesus.”
Canon Scott Sharman, the Anglican Church of Canada’s animator for ecumenical and interfaith relations, says in addition to the primate’s letter to Rowe, “individual Canadian Anglicans have been reaching out with expressions of prayer, solidarity, and support” while “highlighting the strong ecumenical and interfaith witness of clergy and leaders from many traditions in protesting the violation of rights that is occurring south of the border.”
Episcopalians who spoke to the Journal thanked Canadian Anglicans for their support and asked for continued prayers, with Dibblee expressing hope that Canadian Anglicans are welcoming immigrants in their own communities.
