Since 1994, Marcial Sánchez has attended Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in downtown Durham.
He pointed out some empty pews at the 1:30 p.m. Spanish Mass and said a weekly Saturday prayer that usually draws a couple hundred people was also sparsely attended.
“What’s happening is very sad, because to me, these men are violating constitutional laws," Sánchez said in Spanish. "They’re supposed to take people with orders of deportation, felons, but they’re stopping and questioning people with brown skin who they run into.”
“I’m a citizen, and I have to carry my passport with me, to avoid problems or issues," he added. "Like I said, I know they’re violating people’s rights.”
Sánchez's children were born in the U.S., and he says he respects that one of them voted for President Donald Trump last year. But he says he never expected Trump’s immigration crackdown to be like this.
The Department of Homeland Security says officers made more than 370 immigration arrests in North Carolina in two weeks after targeting the state for enforcement. Images of federal agents pursuing immigrants have shaken many in the community, and pushed others into the streets to protest. Others view it as proof the crackdown is working.
Friar Gonzalo Torres, who's originally from Colombia, addressed this during yesterday’s English mass.
"Every nation has the right to protect its borders," Torres said. "By the same time, because we are Christians, we have the obligation and our kinship as Christians and that’s something that is not happening."
Friar Manuel Viera, born in Cuba, is the lead pastor of Immaculate Conception. In a letter to the church this week, he dispensed immigrant families from their obligation to attend mass if they were fearful of immigration officers.
He said their absence is not a failure, but a burden the church carries together.
“We have to be alert. We have to keep our eyes open, we have to take care of ourselves," Viera said in Spanish. "But without fear, and with hope, the hope that comes from Jesus who heals, the hope that comes with the Jesus among ourselves.”
