GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Pastors, priests and other faith leaders in Grand Rapids gathered together on a bitterly cold Martin Luther King Jr. Day to call for the humane treatment of immigrants — citizens and non-citizens — sharing stories from streets, sanctuaries and, in a few cases, detention cells.
The words of the late reverend and civil rights activist, who was assassinated, defined much of the event's rhetoric and tone.
"'Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that,'" said Lynette Sparks, a pastor and a representative for Together West Michigan, the nonprofit that hosted the Monday event.
"Friends, these are dark days for our immigrant and refugee neighbors," Sparks said. "[We have to] shine a light."
For Rev. Dale Dalman, his interpretation of how to shine a light has taken him to the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan where he has prayed, preached and had fellowship with those in ICE custody.
The retired pastor who currently attends First Evangelical Covenant Church in Grand Rapids began the informal ministry after a friend of his, a non-citizen trucker who was born in Mexico, was arrested by ICE in September at a weigh station in Indiana and then detained at North Lake.
"He's a hard worker," Dalman said. "He provides for his family. He loves his job."
In the fall, visits to this friend soon turned into friendships with others at the facility. Now, Dalman makes multiple trips up to Baldwin every week. He and his passengers often take McDonald's gift cards to pass out to others in the waiting room at North Lake. They also participate in what they call the "Above Ground Railroad," which helps recently-released detainees, sometimes hundreds of miles away from home, reunite with their families.
A few weeks ago, Dalman's friend, who had no warrant for his arrest, was allowed to walk free. A habeas corpus lawsuit, which determines if a government has the legal authority to hold a person, had been filed on his behalf.
"I'm trying to follow Jesus, and I'm trying to reflect his hands and his feet and what he would be doing if he was here today," Dalman said. "I can't promise that the government's going to change, I can't promise that policy is going to change. The only thing I can promise is that there is a God who cares, a God who's observing what's taking place, a God who has a special heart for the immigrant."
During the event, Dalman also shared the story of Jessica, an asylum-seeker from Colombia who has lived in the United States for a decade and been "in complete compliance" on her path to citizenship.
Last summer, according to Dalman, Jessica took a second job at a factory to help pay for her son's immigration lawyer. He, too, was in ICE custody. On Jessica's third day on the job, the factory was raided by ICE agents who placed her "and all her coworkers" in detention.
"Every night, she cried herself to sleep reading the Bible, because she was so terrorized at the thought she would never see her kids again," said Dalman, adding that Jessica spent three days in "full-body shackles" as she was transported across the country to North Lake.
"That's how we're treating people here in the United States," he said, fighting tears. "It makes me so angry that this is going on, and I'm so thankful we're shining light into the darkness."
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The symbolism of light and dark also carried into the calls made by Together West Michigan and the faith leaders in attendance, including a call on ICE agents to "be people of the light, operating in the daylight and removing masks," and a call on commissioners and legislators to "use their light to review and hold accountable actions that dehumanize our neighbors."
In recent months, the boards of commissioners for both Grand Rapids and Kent County have heard residents ask for sanctuary policies that would protect people living in the country illegally. While neither governing body has adopted these policies, Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand, who sat in the front row on Monday, said "anything I can do to make our city more welcoming in real terms, I'm going to do."
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LaGrand encouraged neighbors to know their constitutionally-protected rights and added that Grand Rapids Police Department policy prevents its officers from stopping a person based solely on their actual or suspected immigration status.
"If any member of our community is walking down the street, they are under no obligation, simply because they're going for a walk, to produce citizenship papers, to produce identity papers, to talk about their nationality," LaGrand said. "I mean, that's something that happened in Stalinist Russia."
"A lot of people in my city are afraid that the power of the government is going to is going to be used against them," he said. "That's a distressing moment to be in as a city."
