As Immigration Judge Catherine Halliday-Roberts worked through a list of about 50 people whom she was about to order deported in June, a man wearing a clerical collar quietly entered the San Diego courtroom.
He sat down on the last bench, clasped his hands together, bowed his head and began to pray silently.
A couple of volunteers observing the proceedings sat on a bench closer to the judge. One wore a button that said, “FAITH.”
Led by the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, FAITH — Faithful Accompaniment in Trust and Hope — is a ministry program through which faith leaders and community members in the region have organized volunteers to provide daily witness of proceedings at immigration court and Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices. Federal immigration officials have conducted widespread arrests in both spaces since May 2025.
The volunteers do not interfere in the outcomes or try to stop arrests from happening. Rather, they offer accompaniment and prayer to the immigrants affected and their loved ones.
“At least the migrants showing up feel that makes a difference for them. That’s the most important thing. It makes a difference for them,” said the Rev. Scott Santarosa, a Jesuit priest who serves as pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in San Diego. “They don’t feel as alone as they might have been. I also think it does have this effect, which is that the people doing the arresting are aware that someone’s watching.”
Is there ICE activity in your area? Who is it affecting most?
FAITH began in 2025 as an acknowledgment of World Refugee Day with priests and other religious leaders showing up for a morning at immigration court. It has grown into a daily presence of volunteers. As policies have shifted to include arrests of people who come to ICE offices for scheduled appointments in addition to those showing up for court hearings, the volunteers have responded by monitoring both areas of the federal building.
“It’s faith in action,” Auxillary Bishop Felipe Pulido said. “We go to Mass. We listen to the gospel. The gospel always challenges us to live it out in our daily lives. When we see injustice, when we see pastoral needs ... it’s for us to be public witness, basically, not just within the church, but also outside the church.”
World Refugee Day
The FAITH effort grew organically after conversations among members of the diocese’s immigration task force, according to member Dinora Reyna-Gutierrez, executive director of the San Diego Organizing Project, a faith-based civic engagement and advocacy organization.
She said she went with a priest to observe what was happening at immigration court in June 2025, shortly after ICE began stationing officers in the court’s hallways to make arrests of people leaving their hearings.
“I was really agitated, and I think deeply moved and in shock, by witnessing dozens of ICE agents in the hallway — and just heartbroken at seeing how families that were willingly showing up to court in an attempt to stay here had no idea what the outcome was,” Reyna-Gutierrez said.
The diocese had recently closed a ministry providing shelter to asylum-seeking migrants that was needed in the border region during the Biden administration, but border crossings had slowed significantly under the second Trump administration. Santarosa said the priests were looking for other opportunities to support immigrants in the region.
“We said to each other, ‘We have to be attentive to however Jesus comes and knocks on the door the next time because he came knocking, and we responded, and it was this beautiful thing,’” Santarosa recalled.
At a task force meeting, the group discussed bringing priests and other visible religious leaders to immigration court. Reyna-Gutierrez said she felt that the priests’ presence the day they’d gone to court together had made a difference in how people behaved.
What events break your heart or move you in your context?
The group planned an action for June 20, World Refugee Day, led by Bishop Michael Pham, who had recently been appointed to the position by Pope Leo XIV. Pham’s letter calling for volunteer priests went viral.
At St. Joseph Cathedral in downtown San Diego, Pham delivered a homily telling his own story as a former refugee from Vietnam.
“In 1980, my parents took a risk to let my sister, my younger brother and me to go on a small boat to seek freedom along with 116 other people,” Pham said. “We were on a little, tiny boat, out of the ocean for three days and four nights without food or water. Thank God, an oil tanker rescued us, brought us to Malaysia and put us in a refugee camp.”
He said he was grateful to the United States for eventually taking in his family and giving him opportunities.
“Today, I stand as a leader of a Catholic Church, thanks to these opportunities that allowed me to contribute to society,” Pham said. “I believe most of refugees, immigrants, and migrants over the years, whether documented or undocumented, come to the United States seeking opportunities for a better life and success.”
He said the current situation of the United States, with the government separating families to deport people, concerned him.
“When I was 10 years old living in Vietnam, I witnessed this situation, seeing people being taken away for no obvious reason,” Pham said. “It is sad and disheartening for me to see this kind of thing playing out in this country today.”
He urged those in attendance to stand in solidarity with refugees, migrants and immigrants.
“We are God’s children,” Pham said. “Let us store up our treasure in heaven by sharing, welcoming and promoting harmony. If we achieve this, the United States will become a beacon of hope, peace and love to the world.”
After the Mass, local faith leaders including Pham, Santarosa and representatives from other faith traditions went to the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building in downtown San Diego, which houses both the immigration court and ICE offices.
Guards at the building initially blocked their entry but then let them inside. Santarosa observed ICE officers in the hallway outside the courtrooms, but those officers left without arresting anyone after the religious leaders arrived.
After the morning court hearings finished and the religious leaders returned to speak with journalists, a reporter asked Pham whether he planned to have an ongoing presence of priests at the court.
He responded that the priests would be back, and he tapped Santarosa to lead the program, which became FAITH.
Helping and getting help
Santarosa formed a team, and they organized and trained nearly 700 volunteers, including more than 150 clergy, roughly 50 of them priests, to show up to the federal building.
The program launched in August 2025 with volunteers working in three shifts — 7:30-10 a.m., 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 12:30-3 p.m.
Is there anything in your personal history or ministry’s history that can help you understand what to do in the present?
Gloria Morales-Palos schedules volunteers in addition to volunteering at the building herself. She was once undocumented, and now that she has permission to be in the United States, she empathizes with those still in that status.
“The FAITH program is a dream come true to me,” Morales-Palos said. “I just feel very strong that people don’t have to be by themselves, and there’s so many ways that we as a community can get together and help.”
Sometimes people send requests for accompaniment in advance, but most of the time volunteers outside the building meet immigrants on their way into court who ask for someone to come with them, she said.
Pulido said he went with Morales-Palos to accompany a family that had requested support in advance when the father had a check-in appointment with ICE. The bishop stood with the two adult daughters while they waited for their father to come out from the appointment, but the attorney came out alone and said that ICE had arrested him.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Pulido recalled. “The two of them were crying and very desperate. I just got close to them, but I didn’t know what to do.”
Then, he said, Morales-Palos came over to the daughters and comforted them.
“I really saw God through this lady, how she was giving comfort to them,” Pulido said.
Morales-Palos lived that need for comfort herself when ICE arrested her cousin after his court hearing in October. The family’s attorney was eventually able to get the cousin released, and Pham and several priests have shown up for his hearings since then, Morales-Palos said.
“That meant a lot,” Morales-Palos said. “Finally the church is walking along with us. It’s a good time to be Catholic. I’m very proud of being Catholic and being in the diocese in San Diego because the church is doing their mission.”
She said she hopes the program will spread to other regions of the country.
Standing up for FAITH
Patrick Corrigan got involved in the FAITH ministry because he was looking for something to do after retirement.
The military veteran is now the ministry lead and spends four days a week at the federal building.
"It’s just really transformed my faith,” Corrigan said. “I do feel closer to God at the courthouse. I’ve said that before, and it’s cliche, and it sounds trite to me when I say it, but it is that — it’s just a beauty and a reminder of just who we are.”
In February, officials with the Federal Protective Service suddenly decided to tell volunteers that they could no longer stand in the hallways of the federal building because they were loitering. Corrigan and several people volunteering with another grassroots collective stayed in the hallway and received citations.
They decided to fight the tickets.
How can being present or being a witness help in your context?
Corrigan claimed the citation infringed on his freedom of religion.
After an initial hearing in federal court, prosecutors decided to defer the charges. That means that as long as Corrigan and the other volunteers don’t get charged with anything else before August, the prosecutors will drop the charges.
Corrigan said Pham has since met with leadership from the Federal Protective Service and ICE to maintain volunteers’ right to be in the hallways. So far, the volunteers have been in the building every day, but sometimes they have to navigate federal employees who don’t want them there.
The restrictions are toughest, Corrigan said, at immigration court, where volunteers are facing increasing limitations in the waiting area and have been banned from the hallways. The courtrooms are often too full for observers because of a recent increase in the number of people scheduled per judge per day.
For faith leaders in other places thinking of implementing a similar program, Santarosa, Corrigan and Morales-Palos said the most important thing is to start. It doesn’t have to be every day, they said.
“There is not a perfect way, and if you wait to be ready, you will never be ready,” Morales-Palos said.
Reyna-Gutierrez recommended finding a legal services partner for advice on how to observe safely. Santarosa suggested using a buddy system with people who are interested, and Corrigan said that faith leaders might be surprised as to who and how many raise their hands to help when presented with the program.
“We may not change something. We’re not going to change the laws,” Corrigan said. “But we know we’re there. The brothers and sisters know we’re there, and the community knows we’re there. Maybe what matters to me most is there are many folks who don’t look the other way.”
What is a cause or activity that is worth potential conflict with authorities?
Questions to consider
- Is there ICE activity in your area? Who is it affecting most?
- What events break your heart or move you in your context?
- Is there anything in your personal history or ministry’s history that can help you understand what to do in the present?
- How can being present or being a witness help in your context?
- What is a cause or activity that is worth potential conflict with authorities?
