Dozens of clergy and more than 100 community members gathered Aug. 30 outside the site of a proposed federal immigration detention facility on Holsclaw Road near Gilroy, launching what organizers say will be a monthly series of interfaith prayer vigils opposing the project.
The vigil, organized by the Santa Cruz Interfaith Network, drew rabbis, pastors and lay leaders from across South County and the Central Coast for an afternoon of prayer, song and testimony centered on an altar displaying the names of people who have died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
Rev. Scott Newman, pastor at Santa Cruz Bible Church, and Rev. Julie Wooden of Inner Light Ministries read aloud the names of 56 people who have died in ICE detention since the start of the second Trump administration. Attendees were given flowers to place on the altar as the names were read.
Newman told the crowd that clergy have a responsibility to speak up on behalf of people who live with the threat of immigration enforcement every day.
“We recognize that as clergy, many of us have the privilege of not living with that threat every single day, and so we felt it was important to share the stories and experiences of our friends, our neighbors, those in our communities who live with that threat every single day,” Newman said.
Bee Pollicino, the event’s organizer with Santa Cruz Interfaith Network, read aloud a written statement from a local family connected to the Santa Cruz Welcoming Network that asked to remain anonymous. The statement described the toll immigration enforcement has taken on the family’s daily life.
“Immigration enforcement does not only affect the person who may be facing an immigration case,” the statement read. “It affects the entire family, and even the ordinary decisions we make in our daily lives. It has created a great deal of uncertainty and fear.
“We are trying to live normal lives—working, raising our children, sending them to school and contributing to our community—but immigration is always somewhere in the back of our minds.”
Rev. Terra Collier-Young, a Unitarian Universalist community minister affiliated with a congregation in Aptos, said the vigil was meant to push back on the idea that opposition to the detention facility runs counter to Christian faith.
“There has been a co-opting of religion to be in favor of persecution,” she said. “Christ was the protector, the advocate, for the people who are now being persecuted in Christ’s name. So what we are doing is stepping forward and saying Christian nationalism—I’m just going to name it—does not own Christianity, and it does not own the narrative of how Christians relate to this particular movement.”
Rabbi Paula Marcus of Temple Beth El in Aptos also addressed the gathering, tying the vigil to the approach of the Jewish High Holidays. Marcus told the crowd that Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, calls Jews to examine their own conduct and its consequences for the wider world.
The Holsclaw Road facility has faced legal opposition since plans for it emerged this year. Santa Clara County and California Attorney General Rob Bonta have sued the federal government, alleging safety and environmental violations tied to its construction. A hearing for the case is scheduled for Sept. 8 at the federal courthouse in San Jose.
The group plans to hold the vigil monthly, modeling the gathering after similar vigils performed at the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility in Florida.
