[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Chicago has pledged support for immigrants as a “sanctuary diocese” since 2019. Now, with the Trump administration pursuing a new crackdown on immigration, Episcopalians in northern Illinois are living out that spirit of “sanctuary” in ways as diverse as their diocese.
Some congregations in the diocese’s namesake city are considering whether to offer physical sanctuary in their buildings to undocumented immigrants under threat of deportation. The Rev. Sandra Castillo, the Diocese of Chicago’s canon for migration ministries, also is working with community leaders to establish a network of volunteers who can respond as immigrant allies where immigration agents are reported to be making arrests.
Episcopalians also are mobilizing to help about three hours away from Chicago in rural northwest Illinois. In Galena, a small city that is known as an enclave of arts and tourism, Grace Episcopal Church invited Castillo to lead a “know your rights” training last month for about 50 people, many of them immigrants working in local service industries.
President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise of mass deportations, sent immigration officials to Chicago last week to draw attention to enforcement efforts in the nation’s third-largest city. “It is causing a tremendous amount of anxiety,” Castillo told Episcopal News Service, but Episcopalians across the diocese are eager to support some of their most vulnerable neighbors.
“We have the strength we need to protect our immigrant community if we all stand together,” Castillo said.
Many Episcopalians across the church are expressing a similar eagerness to respond to the Christian call to “welcome the stranger” while upholding their baptismal vow to respect the dignity of every human being. On Jan. 28, more than 800 people joined an informational Episcopal Church webinar, during which churchwide leaders discussed the impact and possible responses to Trump administration policies. Several dioceses, like Chicago, already have adopted “sanctuary” policies, while other dioceses and congregations are considering how best to support immigrants in their communities.
“The care of migrants is deeply rooted in the biblical mandate to love and serve others, particularly the vulnerable and marginalized,” the Diocese of San Diego said in a Jan. 28 message. The Southern California diocese, which adopted its sanctuary resolution in 2017, provided a summary of information and resources related to the church’s engagement with immigration issues.
“The diocese encourages congregations – who are willing – to partner with immigrant rights groups, legal aid providers and national coalitions to defend vulnerable populations,” the message said. “In addition to legal responses, religious communities can mobilize to raise public awareness and lobby for stronger protections.”
Other sanctuary dioceses include California, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York and Washington. New York Bishop Matthew Heyd, in an article for the local publication The Spirit, invited all New Yorkers to join The Episcopal Church in responding “with hope, justice and love” to neighbors who feel threatened.
“We join with communities of all backgrounds to affirm human dignity as foundational to our shared civic tradition,” Heyd said. “We believe our care reflects God’s unconditional love. As Christians, we are called to build communities of deep belonging, connection and care.”
Los Angeles has been a sanctuary diocese since 2016. Its Sacred Resistance network is promoting trainings on immigrant rights while also offering guidance to other dioceses and congregations interested in offering sanctuary and other assistance to immigrants.
“We’re calling this Sacred Resistance 2.0, in the wake of this election, and we’re building it as we fly, re-engaging partnerships and collaborations and building new ones,” the Rev. Susan Russell, the Los Angeles canon for engagement, said in a diocesan article about ways Episcopalians are responding to the new Trump policies.
“We’re one week into this new administration, so we’re still building and trying to understand how much of what was threatened is actually going to happen, how much of what is now being promulgated in the media is actually happening and not just a bluster.”
On the campaign trail, Trump regularly amplified racist and xenophobic sentiments to present a dark vision of a broken America. He largely placed the blame on immigrants, including by falsely accusing them of fueling a surge in crime. (Violent crime and property crime rates are far below their 1990s highs, and studies have shown that documented and undocumented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans.)
“On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America,” Trump said while campaigning.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released this photo of the Jan. 25 arrest of a suspected Salvadoran gang member in Hyattsville, Maryland.
On Jan. 20, in the hours after his inauguration, Trump proceeded to sign a flurry of executive orders that included measures upending Biden administration policies on both legal and illegal immigration. He declared a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border. He sought to rewrite the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship. He suspended the country’s 45-year-old program of refugee resettlement. And his administration ended policies that had protected churches and other “sensitive” areas from immigration raids.
The Department of Homeland Security under Trump also said it was stepping up enforcement operations in Chicago and other cities across the country. More than 900 undocumented immigrants a day reportedly have been detained starting Jan. 25, compared to an average of about 300 daily arrests in Biden’s final year.
Separately, the administration boasted of a large number of deportations. “In the first week of the Trump Administration, we have fulfilled President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport violent criminals illegally in the country,” Homeland Security announced Jan. 27, saying it had “removed and returned” 7,300 people. By comparison, the Biden administration reported about 270,00 removals in fiscal year 2024, which ended Sept. 30, or an average of about 5,200 a week.
In Chicago, Episcopal leaders have said they will “resist the stated policy proposals of the current presidential administration to target and deport millions of undocumented immigrants,” based on the sanctuary resolution that the Diocese of Chicago adopted during Trump’s first term. In November 2024, the diocesan convention formalized this as a ministry of the diocese by establishing a Sanctuary Committee.
“Our congregations and institutions are increasingly entering this field of ministry,” the diocese said at the time. “The need for a Diocesan Sanctuary Committee is required to support these various ministries to our brothers and sisters who are members of the established immigrant communities and our new arrivals.”
Since the presidential election, Castillo, a retired lawyer, has led about a dozen “know your rights” trainings around the diocese for immigrants who fear they may be targeted by federal agents. She follows a curriculum developed by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
“That has been especially helpful, having our immigrant community know how to assert their rights and protect themselves,” she told ENS.
Across the diocese, most of the immediate concern has focused on Chicago, but given the significant immigrant population in Galena, Grace Episcopal Church wanted help the community prepare for any future raids.
“There’s a lot of ‘what can we do’ energy in the congregation,” the Rev. Paula Harris, Grace’s rector, said in an interview with ENS.
The rights training that Castillo led in December at Grace was well attended, Harris said. Local faith leaders also have helped foster additional conversations with local law enforcement officials, who say they plan to abide by the state’s TRUST Act, which prohibits local police from enforcing federal immigration laws.
“We care about what’s going on in our community and treating people with dignity,” Harris said.
– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.