"We must be ready for the long haul": Witness at an Immigration Court
Sr. Donna Del Santo, SSJ bears witness to ICE's injustice with her own eyes.
City comptrollers aren’t front and center most media cycles. Auditing a city’s expenses and accounts is a job taken in the hope that no juicy news stories appear.
But on Tuesday, Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller, who is running for mayor in New York City’s Democratic primary this month, was arrested at the federal immigration court on Manhattan’s west side, as he accompanied an immigrant man he called Edgardo to his asylum hearing.
Video showed masked men approaching Lander and Edgardo. Lander asked repeatedly to see a signed judicial warrant (which is legally required in order for ICE to detain someone).
Lander held onto the asylum-seeker’s shoulder and refused to let go until a warrant was presented. None was. “You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. Citizens,” he can be heard saying as four men wrestle his arms behind his back and handcuff him. ICE detained Lander for nearly four hours.
Below, Sr. Donna del Santo, a former live-in volunteer at St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality in Rochester, New York and current Sister of St. Joseph, tells a story of her own visit to an immigration court. She and a fellow Sister of St. Joseph conducted a prayerful witness at immigration court in Buffalo and saw ICE abduct a man. She and her fellow Sister of St. Joseph reprimand the masked ICE agents: “What would your mother say to you?”
Those words reminded me of what Pope Francis wrote in his autobiography, “Hope,” about the importance of Mary, Mother of the Church and of mothers more generally:
A world that looks toward the future without a motherly gaze is quite simply shortsighted: It may still be able to make profits, but those profits won't be for everyone, indeed, they'll be for few, because that world will no longer know how to see their sons and daughters in others. We will dwell in the same house, but not as brothers and sisters. Maybe we will have a today, often angry and poisonous, but not a tomorrow. We will think of ourselves as free, and we will be slaves.
Let us hope and work for a tomorrow as well as today, one of peace, not of anger, of harmony, not of poison.
peace,
Renée
“It’s personal, not just something I saw on the news.”
A few weeks ago, our Justice & Peace Coordinator for the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Rochester, New York, and I went to the Immigration Court in Buffalo to be a prayerful presence and observers in the courtroom. Seated behind us as we watched the proceedings were two-armed men. They were not wearing uniforms or other identifying clothing, nor did they display badges.
Most of the petitioners were in court following the legal process for seeking asylum and none were represented by an attorney. I was heartened by the compassion and professionalism of the judge—a bright spot in a difficult place. Per the legal process, the judge issued orders requiring many of the petitioners to attend another hearing in early 2026.
I needed to leave by 3 p.m. for another commitment, so we exited with the last person seen before the judge. He was Spanish-speaking, so I greeted him and wished him well, "¡Buena suerte. Vaya con Dios!
He went down the elevator ahead of us, and, when we arrived in the lobby, four persons, I presume from ICE, had him handcuffed and were taking him away. "Stop!" we shouted, "What are you doing? Who are you? Shame, Shame, Shame on you! What would your Mother say to you and this evil act?" They quickly pulled him behind a door that said “Restricted”, not before he looked at us with his pleading eyes that said, Help!
Now it's really personal, not just something I saw online or on the news! I asked the guard in the lobby, who is not a police officer or federal agent, "Has this been happening all day?" He said, “I'm not really able to say, but read between the lines."
All the people seen—who thought they were in a legal process, given more time to secure a lawyer, seeking safety and welcome from terrible events happening in their home countries—taken away to God knows where in handcuffs! The skill and time of a Federal Immigration Judge, who showed a professional and respectful response to these frightened Asylum seekers, these sisters and brothers of ours, simply ignored by a bunch of armed thugs, which included two women!
What are we to do? I felt sick, angry, and horrified all at the same time. What has happened to our humanity?
Everyone in the U.S. is entitled to due process. What we witnessed was human beings, our sisters and brothers, scooped up and taken away after doing the right thing according to our legal system. These agents failed to respect the basic humanity of these frightened Asylum seekers.
Our Justice & Peace Coordinator and I reached out to all our federal, state and local politicians to tell them of this travesty of justice. It seemed that many were surprised about this happening in the lobby of the Federal Immigration Court. We are in touch with a Buffalo Immigration lawyer to see what next steps might be helpful.
These are different times. Supporting Asylum seekers in the past had a clear outline of what to expect and to do, now our laws are turned upside down by the Federal government, no one knows what to expect next. We must rely on community and the people of God to band together like we saw on June 14, No Kings Day. We must be ready for the long haul and in the words of Dr. King, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice".
Sr. Donna Del Santo is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester, New York. While working at Corpus Christi Center in Rochester in the 1980’s, she lived at St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality in Rochester. She entered the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1992.
Sr. Donna founded the Sisters of St. Joseph Volunteer Corps in 1996. Through this program, over 1,000 youth have lived with the Sisters of St. Joseph in an intentional community and served in a variety of ministries where they engage people on the margins of our society and learn about the injustices they endure, as well as where they might see some glimmers of hope. She has led service groups to St. Francis Inn in Philadelphia and the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso and has served as her congregation’s Director of Vocations since 2003. She has been a volunteer at Bethany House, a Catholic Worker House of Hospitality that shelters women and children, and has served as the Chairperson of Bethany House’s Board for 14 years.