The weekend before Thanksgiving, I participated in an act of holy resistance, organized by Denver-area Catholics in partnership with Together Colorado. The action was a “Stations of the Cross for Migrants and Immigrants” procession. The location was outside the GEO-owned Aurora ICE Processing Center, where immigration rights advocates have claimed for years that immigrants are treated inhumanely. 

Upon approaching the site, the enormity of the 213,465 square-foot structure was striking. There was a starkness to the “No Trespassing” signs and concrete barricade blocking the entrance, along with the lone ICE officer in tactical gear stationed on the roof. In front of the doors, Colorado, U.S., and GEO flags flew side-by-side, unabashedly broadcasting the U.S. detention-industrial-complex for all to see. 

We knew there was little we could do to affect the circumstances of the up to 1,500 souls held captive inside. Still, we hoped to surround the space with prayers and a presence of God’s abiding love and strength, and to remind them that God’s people had not forgotten them. As we slowly processed around the facility, stopping at intervals to recite scripture and prayers, it was the Fourth Station that struck my core:

“Some of the most vulnerable migrants are women, young and old. They are often exploited in unmentionable ways, underpaid, overworked; and yet we place our greatest trust in them with our own children, our homes, and our food – they are nannies, domestic workers, and cooks. After all their sacrifices and hard work, too many become mothers torn from their children’s arms as they are separated from their American-born children and deported…

Lord Jesus…Give your loving consolation to the countless children separated from the love of their mothers who have been deported or incarcerated. Help them to know that they are not alone, because we rise up to care, protect, provide, and nurture them as members of your church – the Mother of all.”

Upon reading those words together with several hundred faithful witnesses, I was immediately transported back to another act of holy resistance: a protest organized by LULAC in McAllen, Texas, at the height of Trump’s cruel and chaotic family separation policy in 2018. Charter buses from Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston made the journey to participate in this rally and protest outside the Ursula Detention Center. The buses were filled with mothers and other concerned Texans who couldn’t bear the images we’d been witnessing of children held in cages.

While we had hoped to draw greater attention to the need to reunite these families, we did not expect to have any direct contact with the children being detained there. At that point, no outsiders had been allowed inside, other than journalists a few days before and a group of congressional leaders earlier that morning. What we witnessed changed us forever.

As our group stood in a vacant lot across from the center, a bus pulled out from behind the facility and turned down the street toward us. Its passengers were children as young as toddlers, with the oldest among them appearing to be pre-teens. Our group instinctively moved into the street, forcing the bus to stop. 

At that moment, we were confronted with something no one in our nation had yet witnessed: children who had been confined to cages now on a bus with barred, tinted windows, in transit from a facility near the border where they had been separated from their families. They were being taken to unknown destinations at unknown distances from their point of separation. 

Some in our group began shouting “te amamos” (“we love you”) and other Spanish words of comfort in hopes the children could hear them. Some blew kisses and waved. Others put their bodies directly against the bus, while others sat down in front of it to prevent it from moving.

Some yelled at the border patrol officers who had come out of the building to clear us from the street. I confronted one of the officers standing directly between me and the bus, asking several times, “Where are you taking these children?” Finally, he replied, “Somewhere safe. It’s not safe for them here.”

Amid the commotion, I soon noticed one of my Muslim brothers, an Imam from the Dallas area who stands nearly as tall in height as he does in integrity, quietly approached the bus. He laid his hand gently and prayerfully against one of the windows, which was easily over seven feet off the ground. 

Soon, several of us stretched from tiptoes to arms at full length, following his lead. As we did, tiny hands on the other side of the windows began to meet ours, with nothing but the glass between us. Knowing that was likely the closest to a loving human touch these children had received since they’d been forced from their family’s arms still haunts me seven years later.

As I glanced down the side of the bus, I noticed someone drawing a heart with their finger in the dust on the window. Soon, a little finger traced the heart from the inside. In that instant, my heart broke in a way that has never healed.    

These were some of the 4,600 children separated from their families during Trump’s first administration. While the Biden administration made significant efforts toward reunification, as of 2024, 1,360 children remained un-reunited. When Trump began his second administration on January 20, 2025, he immediately cut funding for any such efforts. 

I think of those children often and wonder if any of those little hands meeting ours through the glass, or the little finger tracing the heart, are among the 1,360 who still haven’t been reunited with their families. I wonder if, as the officer said to me, they ever found “somewhere safe.” 

As I stood outside the ICE Processing Center in Aurora, Colorado, one Saturday in November seven years later, I prayed the words, “Give your consolation to the countless children separated from the love of their mothers who have been deported or incarcerated.” As I prayed, I wondered how many mothers are currently locked inside that facility and how many mothers are locked inside ICE facilities all across our nation today. I wondered how many children have been ripped from their arms. 

And again, the officer’s words pierced my soul: “It’s not safe for them here.”

Lord, in your mercy, break the righteous hearts and souls of our nation at this evil being relived throughout this land. Enrage and inspire the masses to rise up, to place our bodies alongside our prayers in all the ways we can protect immigrant mothers, fathers, grandparents, and most especially, children. Amen.