ICE met fire on Friday at church – as Quad Cities Interfaith held a vigil and call to action regarding the federal government’s immigration crackdown and activities by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Friday night at Zion Lutheran Church, Davenport.
Leaders of six different faith traditions in the QC spoke at the hour-long service, which included sing-alongs and fervent prayers for peace, strength, and inspiration in the midst of a chaotic, violent world, particularly in fatal, galvanizing shootings that took place this month in Minneapolis.
Pastor Clark Olson-Smith, Zion’s pastor, was among 15 Lutheran clergy who signed a letter this past week to Iowa U.S. Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley (both Republicans), urging them to give no additional funding to ICE without accountability. The Senate later voted to keep ICE’s current funding level, offering two weeks of negotiations for future levels.
“Accountability and oversight over the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are desperately needed,” the Lutheran letter said. “We ask you to not support any additional funding for immigration enforcement. Furthermore, we ask you to advocate for accountability and oversight for DHS. As members and pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), our faith teaches that when one person suffers, we all suffer. We ask you to protect our neighbors by prioritizing accountability for ICE, not additional funding for actions that are harming our communities.”
On Friday, Olson-Smith read their letter, noting that ICE and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) are “agencies whose aggressive presence in Minnesota in recent weeks led to the killing of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, the detention of children, refugees, and U.S. citizens, and caused both widespread fear and faith-filled resistance.”
“We ask that you would empower us to find the strength and courage to do the work of liberation, the work of love, and that all the people of this country would be united around a common vision of mutual thriving,” he said Friday in prayer. “That our leaders would be persuaded to see that love is stronger than violence, that community is stronger than deportation. That your hope and your way is always love.”
At the Jan. 28, 2026 meeting of the Davenport City Council, aldermen unanimously approved an issue paper that opposes a state legislative proposal to force local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE officers.
An opening prayer on Friday night from Rev. Lisa Gaston, Edwards United Church of Christ, said: “We lament that our hearts and eyes are seeing death, that innocent lives are mistaken for evil, that families live in fear and freedom is slipping away from us all. Freedom to love and care for all people. Freedom to live in safety, to speak truth to power, and to expect all your children to be treated with respect. But like the psalmist of old, while we cry out for justice and mercy, we also cry out your love and blessing, bringing light into the darkness.”
Gloria Mancilla, QCI board member, spoke of immigrants and asked for a moment of silence as she read names of those killed nationwide by ICE agents.
“We're talking about people. We're talking about mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, grandparents and grandchildren, students, workers, neighbors and friends,” Mancilla said. “We're talking about families who love each other, who dream, who struggle, who pray, and who hope, just like we do.”
“Last year, many of us could not believe the impact that ICE raids created in California and how quickly those raids sent shockwaves across the United States. As things continued to escalate and with Chicago with the Midway Blitz, people saw videos of families being taken from their homes in the middle of the night. Children were exhausted and scared. ICE agents claimed they were looking for criminals, but in the process, the daily lives of many people were taken away. Still, many turn a blind eye and continue to believe that that inhumane way many children of gods were being treated was okay because they thought they were criminals.”
Renee Good’s killing on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis “made us realize that if we did not stand up for each other and protect each other, we could be next,” Mancilla said. “We never imagined it could get this severe, but we knew we needed to get ready. We wanted to make sure our community had the tools and support they needed. We knocked on doors. We talked with families about what happened in California, and still many people couldn't believe it. Until the raids reached Chicago. I heard the cries of other organizers across the country saying we needed to get ready. They had never been more scared of their lives and their communities.”
Being a U.S. citizen is not helping, she said, as seen by the fatal shootings of Good and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, also in Minneapolis.
“Communities started coming together getting organized. Whistleblowers warned neighbors when ICE agents were nearby. Parents were afraid of being deported and still had to take their children to school,” Mancilla said. “U.S. citizens and faith leaders began marching and protesting across the country, speaking out for those too afraid to do it themselves. Despite of the fear, despite of the threat and retaliation, we are standing up and we need to keep doing standing up.”
Pretti, a VA nurse, was “trying to record and protect people during a dangerous situation. When two women were attacked. Alex stepped in to help them and in the process, he was shot and killed,” Mancilla noted. “His life reminds us that standing up for others, even though that we are too afraid to speak, it comes with courage. And that protecting one another is a responsibility we all share.”
She cited the case of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was taken into custody Jan. 20 in Minneapolis with his father while returning home from preschool, and shipped to Texas. “He and his father were taken to a detention center far from home, where they remained separated until now. This moment reminds us of the deep vulnerability of children and family and our responsibility to standing up for those who cannot protect themselves.”
“This is why, as people of faith and faith leaders, we are here today to pray, to unify, to see beyond the hate, the separation, the politics and the ideology that divided us,” Mancilla said. “Our faith called us, to bring us together, to stand for each other, to love one another and to protect the most vulnerable, our children.”
Priest calls for people to hear and see
Father Rudy Juarez, of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Davenport (which hosted a Jan. 24 training for the community, to be prepared for and respond to potential ICE activity in the area) asked those at Zion to silently listen.
“Gunshots ringing out in the dead of winter? Can you hear it? The cries of documented and undocumented persons as they get brutalized and thrown to the ground? Can you hear it?” he asked. “The sounds of confusion, the screaming of witnesses as they see the atrocities wrought from their neighbors? Can you hear the slanderous and poisonous words coming out of the mouths of educated people who should know better, but do not? Now open your eyes.
“Can you see the masked and armed men bullying and manhandling everybody every day on the streets for no reason whatever than how they look, who they are and the language they speak?” Juarez asked. “See for yourselves the senseless and cruel and unconscionable actors and actions of federal agents who perpetrate violence and hatred and despair on persons and community with every move they make and every profanity they utter.”
“I for one, am tired of it,” the priest said. “I want to smell the sweet scent of justice, of freedom and peace. I want to hear a word of encouragement, of welcome, of hope and love. I want to see accountability and those who operate with impunity to take responsibility for their lawlessness. And I want the nation to rise up and find its moral core and compassionate heart and right these wrongs and find a new way forward.
“And I want us to find the high moral ground of love of neighbor and work together with all people of goodwill, informing a more perfect and a more just society,” Juarez said. His prayer pleaded: “Give us the courage of our convictions. Grant us unity in purpose and the will to follow through. Grant us peace, grant us love and grant us perseverance in doing the work of peace and justice.”
“Our mission is to stop the oppressors of what they are doing,” said Imam Dr. Bachir Djehiche, Islamic Center of the Quad Cities. “We commit ourselves to prayer, moral courage, peaceful action and standing firmly for justice and human dignity for all. All of us are from children of error, of dirt. As the Prophet Muhammad said in his last sermon, all of you are from Adam and Adam from dirt. There is no preference of white over black or black over white or Arab over non-Arab.”
“America is unique among the whole countries in the world. We have people from all over the world. That's why this nation grows and thrives," Djehiche said. “America could be the only country [that] has the most languages spoken in this country than any country in the world. And the differences in your time, in your language and difference in your color of your skin. The skin you are not providing. You didn't provide yourself with the skin. Nobody decided how he's supposed to be born or to be looked like. That's not your talent. No, the talent is how you become.”
Humanity’s goal must be to learn from each other, he said.
“And by knowing each other, what does it mean to learn from each other? To develop,” Djehiche said. “Because this earth is enough for everybody. This universe is huge enough for everybody. Just use your brain, just use your intellect. You find life in all places.”
Finding purpose in life
“We're living in some perilous times right now, but don't worry, you are where God needs you to be right now,” said Rev. Frank Holly, Third Missionary Baptist Church. “He has a purpose for your life. You have an opportunity right now to make a difference. We live in America, the greatest country in the world.”
“There is the cost of many lives and life is the most precious thing that we possess. Sometimes that's what it takes to have freedom. Many Americans have given their lives in pursuit of this one thing that we hold so dear and is the epitome of what America is about. People in foreign nations dream about coming to America because they long to possess the essence of that defines America. That thing we as Americans call freedom.”
“Throughout history, America has dictated the narrative by denying tyranny and dictatorship by opposing the oppressor and demanding fair, equal and humane treatment,” Holly said. “We must do that also. We have fought for and established as Americans unalienable rights. And unalienable rights are rights that can only be taken away by us. We gave them to ourselves. We are the only ones that can take them away.”
“These rights are seriously being challenged today by the lawlessness sanctioned by the current presidential administration,” he said. “The Constitution further defined by the Bill of Rights, affords us multiple freedoms that politicians are ignoring. Freedom of speech, we can speak, we can say. The right to bear arms. We have that right within the laws, the confines the boundaries that we have established. The people that we have elected to lead us and to safeguard us and our children have turned these very critical and crucial laws that we hold so dearly against us.”
Holly said ICE and the government are justifying “atrocities and inhuman actions being perpetrated against our fellow human beings.” Regardless of political affiliation, it’s time to end “the mask of injustice and hatred for our fellow brothers,” he said. “We have to close the drawbridge of indifference and the secret loathing that we harbor so deeply within our hearts. And we have to clothe ourselves with human dignity and decency.”
“We must be bold in our advance, and advance we must,” Holly implored. “The enemy, the evil one, isn't sitting around waiting for an opportunity. He is advancing his agenda. And the Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against an evil thing that's designed to tear down and destroy anything God has put in place. He is attacking the brotherhood. We therefore must put on the whole armor of God so that we can withstand those fiery darts of Satan.
“We must prepare ourselves to take the fight to them,” he said. “We don't have to do and act like them. But our posture needs to be upright and bold. We need to take a stance. We don't have to advocate the same violent methods they use. Because the battle is not ours, it's the Lord's. But we need to be proactive. We need to make some noise. We need to stir up the fires of activism. We need to get rid of useless senators and congressmen and we need to get out and vote.”
“The call to action is now,” Holly said. “The government has crossed the line. Our voice is our power. Now is the time. If not now, when? If not us, then who? We can't keep settling for getting along. The call to action is now. Raise your banners of disagreement. Sound the alarm. We must demand justice for all.”
Rev. Rich Hendricks, Metropolitan Community Church, said we must oppose what he called the current dictatorship in charge of the government, and its unceasing lies.
“It is a lie that ICE enforcement targets criminals and dangerous persons. ICE is attacking all immigrants, regardless of their service to our communities,” he said. “It's a lie that someone with $1 million to pay to immigrate here is less of a criminal than anyone else. First, there was the lie that unrest in Portland required federal troops. They invaded Chicago and D.C. and L.A. on the pretext of reducing crime, when, in fact, much higher crime rates exist in other, oh, red states.
“In Minneapolis, there wasn't even the pretext for federal invasion and occupation. It was simply revenge,” Hendricks said. “3,000 federal agents in a city that is run efficiently with 60 police officers (The Minneapolis Police Department actually has about 600 sworn officers.). Even if immigrants were the problem, they're not. Where are the raids on Texas and Florida? Oh, yes, silly me, those are red states. A racist policy to terrorize and arrest people of color goes unchallenged under the color of Supreme Court decisions that give government free rein to discriminate and to act on that discrimination. No, to persecute persons of color and anyone who disagrees with Trump and his fascist policies.”
“Where is the media calling out the repeated lie that we are paid agitators? I'm still waiting for my check,” Hendricks said. “They will track us, attack us. They will Photoshop us. They seek to erase us. We will not allow that to happen. All this while the administration ignores court orders and does what it wants.”
“If we want free and fair elections in November, we cannot let up,” he added. “We must not let up our resistance in every peaceful way possible. There is a place in the resistance for every person of goodwill…It’s easy to find the path of least resistance. But I am calling on you to find your own path of maximum resistance. Love at all times. Because love will win and take time to take care of yourself.”
Hendricks prayed: “Where we see destruction, let us be your companion in mending the world. Where we see people forgotten, let us act on their behalf. Grant us a large and loving spirit. Let your peace inspire discontent with all that hurts your children. We pray this in your many names.”
Beth Longlett, QCI board member and member of Zion, gave a call to action and said Friday’s powerful speeches produced a different fire.
“So thank you for giving me that fire in the belly to stay in the struggle, to stay in resistance, to stay in love for humanity,” she said.
The new deal on government funding gives Congress two weeks to reach an agreement of oversight on ICE before their funding runs out. “This gives us a great opportunity to make our voices heard and have an impact,” Longlett said.
“It's imperative that everyone contact their senators and representatives to tell them to stop what ICE is doing. To stop ICE from harming and killing our people, from terrorizing our communities, from stealing our children, from dividing families, from falsely arresting and from breaking the law over and over and over,” she said, asking attendees to sign petitions for members of Congress, to “stop allowing ICE to terrorize our nation with additional funding to demand real and meaningful reform and oversight of DHS and ICE operations, to set clear limits on use of force, protect civil liberties and rights, and create transparency and accountability. Congress should investigate these incidents as well as ICE's operations,” Longlett said.
“You can also help the people in our communities. Call your schools and tell them to make sure they have a plan that protects our children in the event ICE does show up,” she said. “We have a response network here in the Quad Cities to help monitor ICE and alert the community.”
There will be upcoming trainings to teach people how to deal with ICE or law enforcement during an incident and how to develop an emergency readiness plan for anyone who might be at risk. Packets with more information and whistles were handed out at the church.
Miriam Prichard led those in attendance in opening and closing songs, and a closing prayer was offered by Pastor Janine Johnson of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church.
“I grew up in Minnesota, so what is happening there touches my heart,” she said. “It is very concerning to me. I appreciate that all of you are here, supporting our brothers and sisters who are desperately in need of our support and prayers, and our action. We can pray, but we can also act. It’s bigger than just our prayers.”
This story was produced by WVIK, Quad Cities NPR. We rely on financial support from our listeners and readers to provide coverage of the issues that matter to the Quad Cities region and beyond. As someone who values the content created by WVIK's news department, please consider making a financial contribution to support our work.
