Answering the Call to #FreeOurFuture - Webinar Tomorrow 9pm ET/6pm PT

Across the United States, ICE is destroying families and our communities. They fall into a long line of state and state-sponsored policing mechanisms that target communities of Color under the guise and misnomer of safety and security. A few weeks ago, over one hundred UUs gathered in San Diego answering Mijente’s call to action. Check out how it went down! Tomorrow, Wednesday July 25th at 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT join us for a webinar with other people of faith and conscience for a next steps call to hear about what is emerging from Mijente and partner organizations’ #FreeOurFuture work. RSVP here.

Now more than ever, our faith requires us to make bold demands that are rooted in visions of liberation articulated by communities most impacted by white supremacy. As people of faith and justice we are taking this time to reflect on why we need to #AbolishICE and #FreeOurFuture. Check out just a few shared reflections from UUs about why we need to abolish ICE below.

ICE policy is being used to dehumanize lives and treat them as not blessed with inherent worth. This agency, created in a time of national fearfulness, has as its basis Islamophobia and racial profiling and is being used by extremists to perpetuate a culture which makes it impossible for us to realize the Universalist dream of a world community (also named in our principles) living where all are given full rights and the conditions in which people can thrive. What we also need to be exploring theologically is what affirming inherent worth and dignity, grounded as those ideals are in our Universalist heritage, means. It means not just lip service but actively working to make sure people are safe, protected and can thrive. Our nation's immigration policy neither acknowledges the ways our nation has created unsafe conditions in other nations or honors our moral requirement to respond to the massive human suffering ICE policies and practices perpetuate and actively cause.

Rev. Leslie Takahashi, Lead Minister, Mt. Diablo UU Church

I am a first-generation American. My mother came to the US as a non-English-speaking child seeking asylum from the communist takeover of her country in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.  She was escaping brutal poverty. At that time, the US was believing and accepting immigrants who claimed asylum at their borders. The story of a teenager without job or language skills fleeing a war-torn country was a cause for our country’s compassion and sympathy, and she was helped by a network of Americans.  She was sponsored by a great-aunt and then adopted by a family in New Haven, Connecticut, and eventually became a citizen. I know how lucky I am to be alive - my mother earned sympathy and eventually citizenship partly because her skin happened to be white. Today our government is denying asylum and ripping families apart because of racial discrimination.  We must not allow this to happen any longer. We must show compassion and justice to the desperate families now seeking asylum at our borders. Please, join me and the UUA in fighting to abolish ICE.

Mandy Neff, Director of Religious Education, First Parish in Cambridge

We look forward to continuing this conversation and commitment together, with you. Please do join us tomorrow - or sign up to receive the video following the conversation.

In faith,

Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, Senior Strategist

Nora Rasman, Campaign Manager