I honestly promised myself I wouldn’t reflect on the ICE crisis. I wanted to stay quiet—to protect my peace. But I can’t. My heart won’t let me. Our nation has reached a point where we must stop and ask: Where are we really headed?
I know we hold different opinions on immigration, policy, and politics. But why should that blind us to the suffering of other human beings? Why should we accept the treatment of our fellow humans as though they were less than human?
Children being zipped into detention vans. The elderly thrown to the ground. Mothers dragged from their cars while waiting to pick up their kids from school—simply because of the color of their skin. Babies being tear-gassed in the name of finding “undocumented criminals.”
Of course, the majority of those traumatized are later released—they are citizens, or they have legal status.
Surely, if we witnessed such scenes in another country, America would be the first to call for sanctions and demand justice. Yet it’s happening right here—in America.
I don’t want to pretend. The government is using fear to domesticate us—and we must not fall for it. Some may even feel relieved, thinking the victims don’t look like us, don’t speak like us, don’t belong among us. But I’ve been there. I know what it feels like to be on the other side—and I’m telling you, no one is safe. When fear becomes normal and cruelty becomes policy, it eventually consumes us all. We are headed there.
The dangerous wound is that we have become numb to injustice. We no longer feel each other’s pain. This isn’t just about Trump or politics—it’s about our collective soul. Trump is not on those streets—we are. Ordinary Americans are–people with hearts and consciences, making daily choices to act with or without compassion. Those agents are human too—they are doing it in our name. We pay them to do our work.
Friends, what we are witnessing is not ICE, but our humanity stripped of its heart. We have become brutes—unable to see the sacred in one another. We no longer feel shame. We no longer feel sorrow. We no longer hear the cries of others. Instead, we have turned ourselves into lifeless things, incapable of evoking any feeling in us.
As a Christian, I remain prayerfully hopeful. I still believe in God’s power to transform souls. Through God’s grace, I believe America can find its heart again. I believe we can learn to see one another as human once more—to hear each other’s cries and honor each other’s will to live. We cannot continue to ignore the cries of those robbed of their dignity simply because they don’t look like us, or speak with an accent.
I pray that we recover what it means to be human—that we rediscover tenderness, compassion, and love, that we become a nation again.
I pray that we recover our humanity—and act to feel for one another once more. We are better than this, and we always have been. All we need is reciprocal love—seeing ourselves in each other and acting likewise:
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
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From the E-Crier of October 16, 2025. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter.