By the Rev. RJ Powell

Each quarter, the Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations newsletter highlights one of the church’s Episcopal diocesan ecumenical and interreligious officers (EDEIO). Part of a national network, EDEIOs are designated by their diocesan bishops to encourage wider unity in Christ’s church and collegial relationships with members of other religions.

In 2018, during the first Trump administration, news about an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid at a local poultry factory in Bean Station, Tennessee, ripped through the immigrant community in East Tennessee. ICE detained immigrant workers with and without documentation without warning. Families found themselves hanging in the balance, with no clear means of communicating with their detained loved ones and no clarity about their rights or legal recourse. As ICE slowly processed individual cases, we learned that they had implemented a new policy requiring detained immigrants and their families to regularly check in at the ICE office in Knoxville from an approximate 10-county radius—nearly a third of the state. There, officials forced them to stand outside the building for hours, in all weather conditions and without access to bathrooms or shelter of any kind. 

Members of local Episcopal, Catholic, Lutheran, and Unitarian Universalist churches, as well as secular organizations like Indivisible, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Allies of Knoxville’s Immigrant Neighbors organized a weekly vigil at the ICE office to stand in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors. We offered coffee, hot chocolate, snacks, blankets, rain ponchos, hand warmers, and umbrellas as hospitality, and listened to our neighbors’ stories, and tracked and reported important data to partners in the struggle for justice. Just before the COVID pandemic erupted in 2020, we advocated for reform through our elected representatives and successfully pressured ICE to amend their dehumanizing policy at the local office. 

However, during the Biden administration, ICE allowed many discriminatory policies to continue and even expand. During that time, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office adopted 287(g), an ICE policy that deputizes local police officers to act as ICE agents. Additionally, the Knox County Jail (under the sheriff’s office) became the only ICE “bed contract” detention facility in the eastern half of Tennessee, a lucrative deal that funnels any and all deportation cases through the jail on their way south to await final deportation proceedings. 

In early January 2025, weeks before Trump’s inauguration, the local ICE office restarted their policy of dehumanizing our neighbors. After relaxing our direct-action efforts during the last administration, we have now resumed our work to oppose these practices with our “Weekly Witness” vigil. We are also quickly learning just how organized the deportation machine is becoming. Many of the normative policies we knew in the past regarding immigration status are also in flux; even permanent residency (green card) status is not certain right now. 

Our bright yellow banners with the message “¡Ama a tu prójimo! – Love your neighbor!” define our core calling as Christians and people of goodwill to stand with our siblings who are living in terror right now, right next door. Christ beckons us in each of their faces: “I was a stranger.” We must decide now whom we will serve.