Photo credit: San Diego Tribune
Thousands of San Diegans of several faiths marched by Balboa Park on Sunday to call for the dignity of migrants and refugees as the Trump administration’s roundups of immigrants have recently reached new heights.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the afternoon event evoked vibes of a 1960s peace march.
Musicians performed a concert on the grass before the procession, combining worship music in three languages with protest folk songs, performed with vocals, keyboard, acoustic guitar, violin, and a tambourine.
The crowd sang and swayed to Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and The Beatles’ “Let It Be,” and clapped to the Catholic Spanish-language song “Alabare.” People carried banners displaying the names of their congregations as well as handmade signs with messages such as “Never again is now,” “Child of God, child of immigrants”, and Jesus’ quote from the Bible’s Gospel of Matthew, “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”
The crowd began the procession singing “We Shall Overcome.” An Aztec drummer in the back of a Ford pickup and a troupe of Aztec dancers led the front, followed by dozens of clergy and thousands of others. The crowd filled the street and spanned city blocks as they walked up and down Fifth and Sixth Avenues, next to the park.
The Catholic Diocese of San Diego organized the procession in light of Pope Leo XIV’s declaration of Sunday as the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. The diocesan Michael Pham, a Vietnamese refugee himself, has been vocal about migrants.
“We are created in God’s image and likeness,” he said in an interview. “That’s why every one of you, every one of us, has dignity and value. Therefore, we need respect and care for each other”.
The procession comes as immigration enforcement has been quietly but sharply rising in the San Diego region. Arrests by San Diego’s ICE division recently reached a new monthly high. In July, more than 1,900 people were detained.
Fidel, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who gave his first name only, spoke to the crowd through a translator to describe the six weeks he spent detained at the Otay Mesa ICE detention centre. He said he wasn’t fed consistently, and the food he got was tasteless.
Other speakers included leaders of First Unitarian Universalist Church, Congregation Dor Hadash, Islamic Centre of San Diego, Congregation Beth Israel and St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral. They call God by different names, but they all believe their faith requires them to show up on Sunday.
Mike Rothbaum, rabbi of Congregation Dor Hadash, said immigration is personal for him: His grandmother was a first-generation immigrant who settled in Brooklyn, NY, to escape Nazi Germany. His mother lives in a care facility that depends on Haitian workers, and the facility just lost dozens because the administration terminated temporary protected status for Haitians this summer.
Taha Hassane, imam of the Islamic Centre of San Diego, noted that the Quran says most Muslim prophets were migrants.
Allisyn Thomas, interim dean at St Paul’s Episcopal, said: “If you don’t love your neighbour, then you’re not loving God.”
On Sunday, faith groups gathered petition signatures calling for policy reforms to help immigrants: greater access for religious leaders to provide pastoral care at the Otay Mesa detention centre, regular and ongoing county health inspections of the centre, legal representation for everyone facing deportation and the banning of immigration enforcement from houses of worship, schools, hospitals and clinics.
