Immigration Justice YouTube Video Every year thousands of migrant farmworkers, many from Mexico, come to harvest crops and work on dairy farms in Upstate New York.  Recently raids and random pick-ups of Latino workers by ICE and Border Patrol have frightened the workers and restricted their movement.  According to Catholic Immigration News (June, 2008) ICE officials have “stated that as a matter of practice ICE does not target churches, hospitals, or other important basic needs programs for enforcement actions.”  However, increased presence of Border Patrol in the vicinity of the Church of the Epiphany in Sodus, NY before, during, and after the Sunday afternoon Spanish Mass  and the arrest of a Mexican man en route to Mass on his bicycle, inspired community members and others to begin an Anglo “Church Watch” program both to witness and stand in solidarity with their Latino neighbors.  Since the week this video was filmed by a community leader, the Border Patrol has not been seen near the church during Mass, but Mass attendance has dwindled from 200 or more to 30-35 people.  Workers are increasingly isolated.

Posted by Ruth Putnam Marchetti, Diocese of Rochester

– Jeffry Korgen