The gallery in a federal courtroom in Concord was quiet last Friday. About a dozen supporters whispered as they waited anxiously for the judge to announce his ruling in the case of Steven Tendo, a Vermont pastor and asylum seeker from Uganda. Tendo had been in detention at Strafford County Jail in Dover since Feb. 4 and would likely be deported back to Uganda if he lost.
Supporters gasped when Judge Joseph Laplante said immigration officials did not follow due process and ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release Tendo that same afternoon.
Although Tendo wasn’t in court that day, his fellow church member Rebecca Vickery traveled with her family from Vermont. She thanked the strangers and other faith leaders from New Hampshire who showed up to support her friend.
“I hope that you don't get discouraged. We're going to pray for your encouragement, because I'm sure it's not an easy job, but we need people like you to do it,” she said from the courthouse steps.
A year into the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement, Tendo’s high-profile case highlights how immigration has become a focus of advocacy for faith communities and their leaders. Some faith leaders are spending more time at vigils, courthouses and protests, and calling publicly on others to take more risks.
Earlier this year, New Hampshire’s Episcopal Bishop Robert Hirschfeld made national waves when he called clergy to write their wills and to prepare for “a new era of martyrdom” following the killing of Renée Good in Minneapolis.
“I think what we saw in Minneapolis really frightened a lot of people and a lot of clergy,” said Rev. Marybeth Redmond, an interfaith chaplain and advocate from Vermont. “We have to stand up for people who don't have the same privilege and the same kind of pulpit and speaking voice that we as clergy have.”
Redmond said she’s noticed increased advocacy work in Vermont; she met Tendo at a vigil last year, where he spoke out against ICE.
“I do think that religious and spiritual groups are stepping up in a new way, in a way they haven't before,” she said. “I think they are realizing their strength in coming together as interfaith clergy and using their voices, using their community networks, using their deep connections into the nonprofit world and systems of care.”
In Tendo’s case, this meant that word of his detention spread fast. Hours after he was detained, members of local faith communities showed up at the Manchester ICE Field Office and the Strafford County Jail to support him and call on immigration officials to provide adequate diabetes medication.
While he was detained, faith leaders in both states led a series of vigils at his court dates and at the county jail. Tendo is back home and hoping to move on with his work at the University of Vermont Medical Center. He said this kind of support saved his life.
“My church family and leadership prayed, organized, and lifted me up with the kind of faith that sustains the weary,” Tendo said in a statement. “Interfaith leaders, UVMMC, and an entire region across New England raised their voices, wrote letters, made calls, and stood together to stop my deportation and protect my life.”
Tendo has a check-in with ICE next month and several motions before the Board of Immigration Appeals, according to Vermont Public.
For other supporters like Pastor Jon Hopkins, Tendo’s victory was something to celebrate. But he says advocacy for people who are detained and don’t have a public profile is just as important.
“We will show up today and every day to keep on saying, ‘let my people go,’” he said. “Steven is our people. All the people of this land are our people. All of our new American, immigrant neighbors are our people – and we will not sit by and be silent among the cries of injustice. We will continue to chant, ‘let my people go.’”
