CHICAGO — Streets outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in suburban Broadview that had been the scene of conflict over the last month were instead filled with song and prayer Saturday morning as a local church led a procession to the facility, aiming to give the detainees inside Communion but ultimately being denied.

Donning matching yellow shirts that read “God has cast down the mighty from their thrones” and signs condemning ICE, organizers estimated 1,000 members of the procession trekked more than a mile from St. Eulalia Catholic Church in Maywood to the processing facility, singing and praying softly in English and Spanish along the way.

For participant Dave Linhares, the recent ICE raids and arrests have struck him at his core, he said. Having worked with migrant families in the past, Linhares said the processional for detainees was one way he could get involved and give back.

“It’s kind of just been obviously top of mind and horrifying, but also strengthening to know there’s a big community out here to fight back,” Linhares said.

Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, an organizer and executive director for the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, said the procession’s aim was for participants to share Communion and offer hope and encouragement to those detained inside the facility.

It’s an effort to bring light to what he described as inhumanity at the detention center and a facet of“Operation Midway Blitz,” the Trump administration’s plan to bring in more federal agents to Chicago.

“This ICE operation throughout Chicagoland, the city, the suburbs has been traumatizing for families, for people who are just trying to live dignified lives: work, go to school, make a living, put food on the table, go to church,” Okinczyc-Cruz said. “So many people’s lives have been upended … that’s just scandalous.”

Before the procession, participants were led in prayer and heard comments from religious and political leaders, including Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who sympathized with the families of those detained.

“I cannot imagine the fear that some of them are living with every single day, one wrong move, one wrong turn and your life is over in the United States … we are better than that as a nation,” he said.

“We need to stand up for one another and defend one another and due process and make certain that, in process of doing that, we remind people that fear and hate are not part of America. We are a nation that stands together and we can overcome, as we do.”

Eucharistic leaders asked to be let into the facility but were denied, a decision the Rev. Larry Dowling called disappointing. Gatherers instead held Communion outside the facility. Communion is always a sign of hope and faith for people, which the group was blocked from providing today, Dowling said.

“What we experienced today was really a rejection of even the possibility of bringing God’s love and the presence of Christ, an exceptional gift that many in there have cherished,” Dowling said.

Despite Saturday’s dismissal, the coalition and other religious groups said they plan to continue their efforts. “We’re going to do a lot more,” Dowling said, smiling. “Whatever it takes.”

Echoing priests who spoke earlier in the day, demonstrator Linhares added that not delivering the Communion did not mean the group failed.

“It’s easy to feel powerless, but … we have strength in numbers and the more we can form community, organize, get together, be relentless and put fear and hatred right next to love, I think, is the only way to proceed,” Linhares said. “I would encourage everybody to be involved and not to sit by and be complicit.”

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