The immigration task force of the California-Pacific Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church will host a Sacred Vigil for Justice outside the Adelanto Detention Center (10250 Rancho Road, Adelanto, CA, 92301) on Tuesday, June 16 at 11 am.
As the United Methodists prepare to gather in La Quinta, California for their annual conference session, the task force recognized the importance of acknowledging the California desert is also currently a place of uncertainty, pain, and death for many. The group hopes the vigil will be a stand of solidarity with detained individuals, honoring lives lost, and calling for accountability and justice.
The group will hold a 45-minute vigil of prayer, remembrance, and advocacy. They will offer presence and accompaniment to the nearly 2,000 individuals currently detained.
Thoe gathered will also name, remember, and honor the lives lost—the three who have died within those walls in recent months, in years past, and the 46 individuals who have lost their lives while in immigration custody or detention. Their lives are not forgotten.
Monalisa Tu’itahi, Immigration Coordinator for the Conference and an immigration lawyer, said that this vigil is an important stop on the road to the conference gathering. “We stop because faith compels us to bear witness and resistance. We stop to lament the suffering that has taken place, to stand in accompaniment with those detained and their families, and to raise our collective voice in advocacy, demanding accountability, justice, humane treatment, and systemic change,” she shared.
The vigil will be an act of public witness, to declare that every person is worthy of dignity, compassion, and care. And a call for an end to detention practices and systems that dehumanize our immigrant siblings.