As mass deportations continue, Tucsonans turns to La Virgen de Guadalupe to protect migrants

TUCSON – About 75 people gathered outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tucson Field Office on Friday for a Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe prayer vigil, where they denounced the targeting, imprisonment and deportation of migrants. 

Led by members of the Good Neighbor Interfaith Committee and local ministers, the group prayed for migrants who have been detained and deported, as well as for those carrying out the arrests and deportations. 

The committee was formed a year ago and is part of the Defend Tucson Coalition, a group of local advocates working together to defend civil liberties and community safety.

Many in the crowd held signs that read “Stop the Kidnappings,” “No Border Wall” and “Justice for Immigrants and Refugees.” Others held images of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Catholic patroness of the Americas who has become a symbol of resistance for the immigrant community in the U.S. 

“We pray for sisters and brothers who are being targeted, harassed, tortured, imprisoned, separated from families,” said Rev. Karen MacDonald, a member of Rincon Congregational United Church of Christ. “We pray for their strength, we pray for their safety. We pray for their release. We pray in solidarity with and for our Tohono O'odham sisters and brothers on whose ancestral lands this harm and destruction is being carried out, against all of their values.” 

Behind MacDonald was a life-size banner with an image of the Virgin Mary, her hands together in prayer, the blue-green mantle over her tunic in shades of pink. On the ground below the image were tall candles, each with an image of her. Next to them a framed drawing titled “Jesus Migrante,” which depicts him grabbing onto a barbed wire fence with bloodied hands. Behind him, three saguaros on a hill set the desert scene.

The prayer vigil was held just outside the parking lot of the Airport Business Plaza, which includes several businesses along with the ICE Tucson field office. 

Tucson Police blocked off part of the parking lot, near the gate to the ICE office, with yellow tape where a mostly peaceful protest in June ended with a handful of people breaking windows and spray-painting walls. At least two officers were present during the vigil, but stayed in the parking lot, away from the crowd. 

As MacDonald prayed for the federal agents and workers carrying out the arrests and deportations, she turned toward the building where some of those workers were. 

“We pray for our sisters and brothers carrying out the work of ICE, CBP, Homeland Security,” she said. “Their heart to be healed, their minds be opened and that love overcome fear. Bless you all, we pray with peace.”

After the vigil, MacDonald shared with CALÓ News the importance of people coming together as they did on Friday — diverse faiths, age groups and ethnicities to bear witness and speak out against injustices happening to immigrants. She said that as a Christian she follows “the One who was born as a child and had to flee as an immigrant,” adding that Jesus’ story was similar to what people are witnessing and living through these days. 

“This is not right, and we're not going to let it go in silence,” MacDonald said. “We're speaking out of and for our humanity, and for love to prevail.”

Paula Miller, a volunteer coordinator with the organizing committee, helped put the event together.

“I think people walked away with some hope,” Miller told CALÓ News. “And also with some renewed energy to keep going, that we need to keep praying. We need to use every tool in our toolbox these days, and prayer is one of them.”

Miller said the committee decided to hold the prayer vigil outside the ICE offices, “to really pray for the men and women that work in that space.”

“And so the faith community can bring together that perspective and those words and prayers to ask them to stop, you know, the repression on their communities and their neighbors,” she said. 

Maria Carraso, a volunteer with Derechos Humanos and other local immigrant rights groups, said it’s important for communities to organize against immigration detention and deportations. She’s talked to many people in the community who have been directly impacted by immigration enforcement, she said. They call her to report suspicious vehicles in their neighborhood, but they’re scared to leave their home to record what they see. 

Carraso urged people to call the Rapid Response line at (520) 221-4077 if they see potential ICE activity in their neighborhood. Rapid Response is a group of volunteers who are trained to observe federal agents to ensure people’s rights are not violated during ICE operations. 

During the vigil, Carraso stood across the street from the main crowd, holding a framed image of the Virgin Mary. The frame was so large that it covered more than half of Carraso’s body. About five others stood alongside her across the street, some holding up posters. Cars honked in support as they drove past. 

“We are people of faith,” Carraso said in Spanish. “And so the Lady of Guadalupe represents all of us, all of the gente mestiza (or people of mixed race), the Indigenous people.”

She said when the Lady of Guadalupe appeared, Indigenous people were being victims of genocide and she stopped many of those abuses. Indigenous and Latin American people see the Virgin Mary as a mother, Carraso said. 

“We pray to ask her for protection,” she said. “And to ask that these ICE agencies have more humanity with migrants, because they’re treating them horribly.” 

She has heard of people experiencing poor medical treatment, attempting suicide, being put in solitary confinement for several months, Carraso said. She has seen how families are separated and can’t connect with their loved ones while in detention, which is torture not just for the detainee but for the whole family, she said. 

Carraso said she felt the love of those who showed up to Friday’s vigil and she’s taking that love with her. 

“The love of all these people, the love they show by coming to defend the migrants,” she said. “That's something impressive, that they are thinking of their fellow migrants, even though most of them are White people, they’re people who love us, who accept us, who give them the support they need to be in this country, who welcome them to this country.”

Stephanie Casanova is an independent, bilingual journalist from Tucson, Arizona, covering community stories for over 10 years. She is passionate about narrative, in-depth storytelling that is inclusive and reflects the diversity of the communities she covers.