As some immigrants and refugees living and working in Monmouth are being notified by the federal government that they need to leave the country, faith leaders will host a prayer service for them on Wednesday night.
“People are really scared that we're going to lose friends, that they're going to go back to nations that are not safe. The Haitians who came here have shared stories of tremendous violence that was happening in their homeland. And there's tremendous fear amongst the people who know them that if they go back to Haiti, it's not going to go well,” said Pastor Jamie Gallagher of First Lutheran Church in Monmouth.
The Trump administration is revoking the legal status of 530,000 Haitian, Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan immigrants who legally came to the United States under a Biden-era program that was meant to reduce illegal immigration.
The prayer service, scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday in the sanctuary of First Lutheran Church, 116 S. B St., was planned after a Haitian family in Monmouth received a letter from the federal government saying what date they need to leave the country by.
Gallagher said faith leaders and concerned citizens have been working together to advocate for immigrants and refugees and search for ways to protect them, including talking with immigration attorneys.
“We have exhausted a lot of legal avenues. We have been contacting our Congress representative and senators,” Gallagher said. “It seems like we don't have any other option but to just gather and pray together. And so we're going to lament, pray for their safety, talk about what we can do, and just be together in community to share in this time of pain and grief.”
The prayer service will be led by Gallagher, Methodist Pastor Shelly Forrest, and possibly other faith leaders in the community.
“Our faith does call us to welcome the refugees, welcome the immigrants, to erase the lines of division that humanity puts up between us and to say we are all one family,” Gallagher said. “And so that's what we're striving to do here, is to say we are one with them.”
Gallagher said the service is for immigrants, refugees, and everyone in the community who has welcomed them. He said the service will focus on lamenting the removal of immigrants and refugees — and offer prayers for safe travel and for the nation to return to a promise of welcome for immigrants.
“These are not just political, hypothetical things. They're real people who are really impacted by what's happening,” Gallagher said. “So the more we can get to know them as individuals, the more we can empathize with the pains that they're suffering through, the more we realize what dangers they're facing by the decisions of our federal government.”
Many immigrants and refugees in Monmouth work at the Smithfield Foods pork-processing plant in town.
Smithfield Foods’ corporate office did not respond to questions from TSPR regarding the number of workers at the Monmouth plant who are being told to leave the country, but a spokesperson did say the plant was “adequately staffed and not experiencing any disruption.”
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