Pilgrimage

Migration with Dignity Pilgrimage to U.S.-Mexico border
draws over 150 Episcopal clergy and laypeople to decry migrant detention

The inhumanity of detention centers affects both migrants and those charged with caring for them.
“Detention is expensive, immoral, and unjustified,” say pilgrimage organizers.

After five days and more than 1,300 miles, vigils at five detention centers, and meetings with local community members and Customs and Border Patrol officers, Migration with Dignity pilgrims are tired—and fired up.

“Seeing these massive detention centers, with floodlights and surrounded by barbed wire, brings to mind the worst of human history,” said Rev. Leean Culbreath, co-organizer of the pilgrimage. “The question is whether this really about American security, or more about the profits being raked in by many of the 200+ detention centers in the United States. We think the latter and believe there is another way.”

The pilgrimage began on June 1 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and concluded in San Antonio; it also included a brief visit to a shelter for deported minors in Ojinaga, Mexico. The pilgrim group comprised ten clergy and lay persons from Texas, New Mexico, Georgia, Washington D.C., Virginia, and California, and was organized by the Episcopal Migration Caucus, a parachurch group established in May 2024.

“Mass detention and deportation go against our deepest value that all are created in the image and likeness of God and against our Episcopal baptismal promise to seek Christ in all persons and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves,” said Martin Dickinson, an Episcopal lay person and co-organizer of the pilgrimage.

Prayer vigils were held at each stop along the way and local community members were invited to participate. The vigils featured personal stories and reflections on the work being done to support migrants, readings from the Bible, prayers, and songs. The first vigil, held near the Torrance County Detention Center in Estancia, New Mexico, drew 55 people, including the Rt. Rev. Michael Hunn, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rio Grande.

Bishop Hunn emphasized the great harm being done to those held in the detention centers, while also expressing concern for those charged with caring for detainees. “Those who are detained deserve humane treatment, and those employed in the detention center deserve the honor of treating people humanely,” he said. “Not asking people to sleep in cold rooms, with the lights on all night, or packed in like cattle. Treating people like animals hurts a person.”

Episcopal Migration Caucus members also point to the damaging psychological, physical, and developmental effects of detention on children and the inhumanity of family detention. Mr. Dickinson said, “What many Americans may not realize is that ICE’s own advisory committee previously opposed the general use of family detention and has said, ‘…families should be detained for the shortest amount of time and … facilities should be licensed, nonsecure and family-friendly.’ The committee viewed detention as a last resort and expressed strong preference for ‘community-based case-management programs that offer medical, mental health, legal, social, and other services and supports, so that families may live together within a community.’”[*]

“The American public needs to focus on what is happening in detention centers,” said Rev. Culbreath. “The overwhelming majority of migrants coming into the United States want to abide by our laws, work, and pay taxes, because they believe this is how they can show their commitment to this country. Our society, including its economy, is made poorer when migrants are unnecessarily locked up in what should be labeled as prisons or internment camps.”

Rev. Culbreath continued, “We, as Americans and as Episcopalians, have a choice to make. We have to decide if we want to keep going down this path, or if we want to have a completely different system that truly upholds the dignity of every human being, which is part of our baptismal covenant.”

To learn more about the Migration with Dignity Pilgrimage, see the stories by Episcopal News Service and El Paso TV.

[*] Report of the DHS Advisory Committee on Family Residential Centers (September 30, 2016), at https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report/2016/ACFRC-sc-16093.pdf#:~:text=ICE%20should%20develop%20a%20Family%20Bill%20of,ICE%20should%20ensure%20families%20in%20detention%20have; last accessed June 6, 2025.