Sadly this post is a repeat of my last, on January 27 of this year “How Many Deaths Will it Take?” Nothing has changed since then. The atrocities committed by ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement – continue to happen in many states.
This past week our daughter and a friend helped with support for the family and friends of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, at the public viewing and the private service to honor his life. Salgado, who was executed by an ICE agent on July 7th right here in Houston, was our neighbor. He has been in this country for 35 years, working and paying taxes and contributing to the economy. He was heading for work on the last morning of his life. He had said goodbye to his sons and his wife, carried his packed lunch out the door and drove around the neighborhood in his work van picking up several of his crew, José Trinidad Rojas Pliego, Daniel Tirado Pantoja, and his brother Víctor Salgado. I won’t go into the horrific details of the murder, nor will I give any credibility to anything put out by ICE or DHS – Department of Homeland Security. There is a reason these agents drive unmarked cars, wear no identifying uniforms, have no body cams or feel no need to declare themselves. Their intentions are to terrorize the population and act with complete impunity. Which includes execution of anyone for any reason. No infraction too trivial to justify shooting an unarmed man inside his vehicle. They are taking a page from the playbook of the Nazi Brownshirts in 1920-30s Germany. Read your history.
At mass on Sunday, when I turned to share the ‘sign of peace’ with the man whose was singing all the hymns and responses behind me, I was in for a shock. He was Lorenzo Salgado. The broad working man’s face, nice smile and firm handshake. On either side of him were his family. This fellow worshiper, one of our congregation, could have been the man murdered by ICE on July 7th. And there would be an empty pew here and his absence would be felt and his presence missed. Loss of his voice to our worship would cause the singing to be off. God would know.
I felt a jolt of recognition, then immediately knew I was right. This man, every man and woman, we all are Lorenzo. I turned back to face the altar, swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat, dabbed at my eyes and continued to worship. Receiving communion and knowing he was behind me, made this too real. The people who are being persecuted are our neighbors and we cannot ignore it. Here in this sacred place, we are one body as St. Paul wrote [1 Cor 12:12-27.] White, Black, Latino, Asian and more. As I was driving home it hit me that not once, during the ‘Prayers of the faithful’, the sermon or the announcements was Lorenzo’s name mentioned, no prayers for his family, or denunciation from the pulpit for this evil coming from the highest places in this government.
Why are some clergy, specifically the Priest and Deacon who presided over this service, the ones who are supposed to be Shepherd to us, not speaking out? What do they fear? That a few MAGA’s in the pews will get their feelings hurt? Or maybe they are MAGA supporters themselves and believe it is perfectly acceptable to treat the immigrants among us with contempt and violence. After all this terrorist regime is ‘Right to Life’. Fight to save the embryos, but don’t take care of them after they are born. These clergy are white US citizens. They are not in danger of being taken to an un-known site where no one can help them. No masked agents are going to gun them down. And they certainly are not “Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany. Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran priest who would not be quiet in the pulpit, ended up before a firing squad in 1945, just weeks before Hitler took his own life. There is no such danger to their lives if they had spoken up about this evil among us. I know if they had said something in support of the family of Lorenzo, it would have meant so much to those of us in the pews, grieving and angry.
But not all are silent. This morning I read in the Houston Chronicle that a coalition of “Clergy members and other faith leaders gathered Wednesday at the Texas Capitol as part of a National Day of Action, calling on Gov. Greg Abbott and state lawmakers to impose sweeping new oversight of federal immigration enforcement.” Represented were clergy and lay leaders representing Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, United Church of Christ, Catholics, and Jewish faiths.
But many more will have to live with their conscious when they realize that they were part of this evil. To quote Albert Einstein “If I were to remain silent, I would be guilty of complicity.” So if you do not take a stand, if you keep quiet while evil does its deeds, then you are complicit. Without those who remain passive, ICE could not murder in plain sight.
Twenty years from now when your grandchildren ask you about this era, the one that is now part of US history, will you lie to them? Act as though you were not part of this regime, that you did not support them? How will that feel?
As I write this Lorenzos’ passengers, who are eye witnesses to what actually happened, are incarcerated, waiting to be deported. I pray justice will prevail and they are able to testify to the truth and are allowed a path to US Citizenship, so they can stay here in Texas, their home.
And it continues. There is a second ICE murder. 26 year old Johan Sebastian Durna Guerreo from Columbia was shot and killed in Biddeford, Maine on July 13th .
Logos 