“I’ve had some priests who are of a different color being targeted and arrested — stopped — because of their color and asking them to prove that they’re citizens.”
From RNS:
Cardinal Blase Cupich, head of the Archdiocese of Chicago, has twice told interviewers in recent weeks that priests in the archdiocese have been stopped by federal agents and asked to prove their immigration status — demands he said were “because of their color.”
Cupich made the allegation in a Jan. 17 interview with WTTW, a Chicago PBS affiliate, and in an interview published Friday (Feb. 6) in the U.S. edition of El País, a Spanish newspaper.
“I’ve had some priests who are of a different color being targeted and arrested — stopped — because of their color and asking them to prove that they’re citizens. That’s not America,” Cupich told the PBS affiliate. “We should not have to live in a country where people have to carry around their documents all the time.”
In the El País interview, Cupich said: “It brings terror into a city where not just immigrants, but the population, feel as though they’re being terrorized by the ways that these roundups are going.” He continued, “This is really unheard of. That kind of tactic is really fueling the outrage of people, not only because of the murders that we had in Minneapolis, but also because of our experience here.”
It was not immediately clear how many priests in his archdiocese Cupich was referring to, or the exact nature of their alleged encounters with U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents. A spokesperson for the archdiocese declined to elaborate in an email to Religion News Service, saying, “We have nothing to add beyond what Cardinal Cupich shared in that interview.”
In the El País interview, Cupich said: “It brings terror into a city where not just immigrants, but the population, feel as though they’re being terrorized by the ways that these roundups are going.” He continued, “This is really unheard of. That kind of tactic is really fueling the outrage of people, not only because of the murders that we had in Minneapolis, but also because of our experience here.”
It was not immediately clear how many priests in his archdiocese Cupich was referring to, or the exact nature of their alleged encounters with U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents. A spokesperson for the archdiocese declined to elaborate in an email to Religion News Service, saying, “We have nothing to add beyond what Cardinal Cupich shared in that interview.”
In a statement sent to RNS Tuesday evening, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that “allegations that ICE engages in ‘racial profiling’ are categorically FALSE,” and claimed similar accusations have contributed to an increase in assaults against DHS agents.
RNS also reached out to several other dioceses and archdioceses to ask whether their priests have had similar encounters with DHS. Most did not immediately respond. Representatives from the Los Angeles and Miami archdioceses said they were not aware of their priests experiencing similar encounters with DHS.
