San Diego clergy visit federal immigration court to bear witness during crackdown on migrants

SAN DIEGO (AP) — About a dozen religious leaders from the San Diego area visited federal immigration court Friday to serve as witnesses to “what goes down” as some cases arising from the Trump administration’s migration crackdown are heard, an organizer said.

Some migrants have been arrested at the court by federal immigration officers. The Rev. Scott Santarosa, a Jesuit priest who was lead organizer of the group, said the purpose of the visitation “is more than anything just to provide some sense of presence.”

“People are longing for people of faith to walk with vulnerable migrants,” added Santarosa, the pastor of San Diego’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. “Our goal is not trying to prevent arrests — but we can witness it.”

The visit was preceded by a Mass at San Diego’s Catholic Cathedral with bishops and other clergy — including Bishop Michael Pham, the top-ranking official in the group and one of the first bishops to be appointed by Pope Leo XIV after his election as pontiff — offering prayers for refugees and migrants on World Refugee Day. Pham himself is a refugee; he came to the United States unaccompanied as a boy from Vietnam.

The idea for the court visit started during a diocese-wide call to plan events for World Refugee Day, in addition to each church holding a Mass to pray for migrants and refugees, Santarosa said.

The priest said he hopes that visiting the court helps migrant communities — both more recent arrivals and those without legal status to be in the country who have lived in the San Diego area for decades.

“They’re feeling like people just want them to disappear,” Santarosa said, adding that a woman told him, in Spanish: “Father, we feel as if we were hunted, as if we were animals.”

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