Interfaith vigil held in Athens for ICE mass detainees

The following was released by The Interfaith Clergy Partnership of Greater Athens

A coalition of Athens-area religious groups held an interfaith candlelight vigil on Sunday in support of immigrants and others affected by mass detentions, deportations and the violent actions of poorly-trained Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

“We’re here to bear witness to the lives lost due to ICE actions, their broken-hearted loved ones,

to the children and families separated, sometimes forever, to the untold fear and suffering, to the

cruelty of deportation en masse and without due process of law,

” Rev. Dr. Pippin Whitaker of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Athens told the assembled crowd.

About 150 people from a variety of religious traditions braved the cold to attend the vigil.

Participants prayed, sang songs and silently held candles to honor the dead as the names of

the deceased were read aloud.

The vigil was held following the sale of a large warehouse in Social Circle, GA to the Department of Homeland Security for the creation of an 8,500-bed detention center.

“8,500 spaces where people could be held for months at a time, far from families, far from

anything that feels human,” said Rev. Tom Buchanan of Covenant Presbyterian Church.

“8,500. That number should stop us in our tracks. Because each space represents someone’s mother.

Someone’s son. Someone who has worked, worshipped, volunteered, paid taxes and tried to

build a life in what they desperately wanted to believe was the land of the free.”

The facility is opposed by the Social Circle city manager Scott Taylor, who says his town doesn’t

have sufficient infrastructure to accommodate it. The facility would more than double Social Circle’s current population of 5,500 people.