By Tracey Primrose
Recently, a student at Jesuit High School in Portland, Oregon, saw her world abruptly upended. As she was being driven to school, the family’s car was surrounded by multiple federal immigration agents in separate vehicles. Within moments, a window was shattered, and her parent was forcibly removed and taken into custody by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The student remained composed. As she had been trained to do, she asked whether the agents possessed a signed judicial warrant authorizing her parent’s arrest or detention. Her questions went unanswered. She watched in terror as her parent was taken away, while she was left alone on the street on what had begun as an ordinary school morning.
Scenes like this have unfolded tens of thousands of times across the U.S. in recent months. At Jesuit High, however, this moment did not happen in isolation; for the past year, the school had been intentionally accompanying students from undocumented and mixed-status families, preparing them—spiritually, emotionally and practically—for precisely such encounters.
Located on Portland’s southwest side, Jesuit High draws students from across the metro area, including many from affluent neighborhoods. Its mission, however, emphasizes access and belonging across economic lines. According to Amanda Montez, Jesuit High’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion, 25% of the school’s 1,300 students receive financial aid. Approximately 10% receive between 80 to 100% tuition assistance.
Because immigration status is deeply personal and often kept private out of fear, Montez does not know exactly how many students come from undocumented or mixed-status families. What is clear, she says, is that these students are an important part of the school community—and that immigration enforcement actions reverberate well beyond the individuals directly affected.
For more than a year, Jesuit High had been preparing for a moment like this. In the months leading up to the presidential election in November 2024, Montez and Brenda Cruz Jaimes, the school’s associate director of diversity, equity and inclusion, began meeting with students whose families might be affected by immigration enforcement.
“We wanted students to have a safe space to talk about their fears,” Montez says, “and to be prepared for a worst-case scenario by understanding their rights and what to do if they encountered ICE.” Because they also wanted to accompany parents, the school held workshops on parental rights and family preparedness, including guidance on the need for notarized guardianship documents should both parents be detained.
When the student’s parent was taken into custody that morning, Jesuit High activated its crisis-response protocol. Senior leaders convened, faculty were notified, and staff were invited to gather in the chapel after school to pray.
After the student wrote about her parent’s detention and shared her story through a GoFundMe campaign, the Jesuit High community responded swiftly, raising more than $30,000 in just 48 hours to help her secure an immigration attorney.
“I think the beauty of being in an institution like ours is that people want to show up for one another,” Montez says. “So many people feel helpless right now. They want to know how to keep their neighbors safe and how to accompany those who are vulnerable. Schools, especially Jesuit schools, can be places where we learn how to walk with the marginalized and stand with our immigrant neighbors.”
A Ministry of Presence
Father Brendan Busse, SJ, is the pastor of Dolores Mission Parish in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles. Since its founding in 1925, the parish has served a mostly Spanish-speaking, working-class community, with many immigrant families. At Dolores Mission, faith and action are inseparable—a commitment embodied in its longstanding partnership with Proyecto Pastoral, a community-building nonprofit that emerged from the parish and continues to work closely alongside it to meet neighborhood needs.
In June, Fr. Busse was attending a grade-school graduation at Dolores Mission’s school when his phone began lighting up with urgent messages. Learning that ICE had raided a warehouse across the river, he rushed to the scene and found the area already crowded with anguished family members, community advocates and lawyers who had gathered to support the workers being detained inside. As FBI agents fired tear-gas canisters into the peaceful crowd, Fr. Busse recalled, “It felt like a militarized alien invasion, which is ironic given how the word alien is being used these days.” He watched as the daughter of a detained man leaned through an open gate, straining to reach her father. When an ICE agent attempted to grab her from inside the fenced area, Fr. Busse and others locked arms to prevent her from being dragged inside.
Like Jesuit High School in Portland, Dolores Mission anticipated an escalation in immigration enforcement—workplace raids, street arrests and family separations—and began preparing parishioners nearly a year earlier.
As fear has intensified, both the parish and Proyecto Pastoral have focused on sustaining daily life for families who are afraid to leave their homes. Through emergency funds, they have helped cover urgent needs, while volunteers have stepped in to buy groceries and even staff food carts for vendors who are afraid to leave their homes. “Accompaniment is really at the core of our spirituality,” Fr. Busse says. “It means being a listening, compassionate presence.”
Although the pandemic has been over for several years, Fr. Busse says that in Boyle Heights, “The streets are eerily quiet again. It feels like pandemic 2.0. All our families are affected by this terror campaign. No one is feeling safe.”
That climate of fear has made collaboration essential. Dolores Mission and Proyecto Pastoral are part of the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network, a community-based coalition that mobilizes volunteers to verify reports of ICE activity; share accurate, real-time information; and help families understand their rights when enforcement actions occur. The parish and Proyecto also work closely with the Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic at Loyola Law School, which provides free legal representation to low-income immigrants facing deportation, and with LA Voice, a multi-faith grassroots network that brings together congregations, schools, labor groups and community organizations across Los Angeles County.
“Our immigrant brothers and sisters are some of the hardest-working, most generous and kind people I know,” Fr. Busse says. “They have suffered more than anyone should. And yet they still show up—the poorest of the poor—opening the doors for the ones behind them.”
Fr. Busse believes that while this is a frightening moment, it is also a sacred one. “When you drag things that are harmful into the light,” he says, “the light does the work. People are moved to stand up and offer help.”
Among those who have stepped forward is Rabbi Susan Goldberg, who asked members of her Nefesh congregation to gather outside Dolores Mission while parishioners attended Mass. “We know what it’s like to feel unsafe,” she told Fr. Busse. They put out coffee and donuts for parishioners and stood in quiet solidarity.
“The most sacred thing we can do for anyone,” Fr. Busse says, “is ask what it is like to be them. The second question is, ‘How might I help you?’ Ask those two questions and see if your heart is not compassionately moved.”
Accompaniment Where the Stakes Are Highest
It began, Father Scott Santarosa, SJ, says, almost by accident.
Last June, Fr. Santarosa, the pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in San Diego, was part of a call with the Diocese of San Diego’s Immigration Task Force, a group charged with thinking through how the local Church might respond to an increasingly fraught moment for migrants and refugees. As International World Refugee Day approached, the group was brainstorming how to mark the occasion.
Just as the call was winding down, Dinora Reyna-Gutierrez, executive director of the San Diego Organizing Project, raised a possibility. She had recently been at immigration court with Father Brad Mills, SJ, who serves with Fr. Santarosa at Our Lady of Guadalupe, and noticed something unexpected: Simply having a priest present seemed to change the atmosphere. What if religious leaders went to court on International World Refugee Day—not to protest, but to be present?
Fr. Santarosa didn’t hesitate. He volunteered to attend and suggested the diocese invite other priests to consider doing the same. Within hours, a letter was drafted, approved and sent out under the signatures of Bishop Michael Pham and the diocese’s auxiliary bishops. No one anticipated what would happen next.
The letter went viral.
By the following day, it was circulating widely on social media and had become a national news story. Headlines noted that Michael Pham, the first American bishop appointed by Pope Leo XIV, was asking priests to accompany immigrants at court. Calls poured in—from clergy, religious and laypeople—asking how they could participate.
“We quickly realized we couldn’t take 80 people into immigration court,” Fr. Santarosa recalled. So, the plan shifted. A single Mass would be celebrated at the cathedral, followed by a small delegation—bishops included—traveling together to the courthouse.
On June 20, that’s exactly what happened. Bishop Pham celebrated Mass and, joined by the diocese’s other bishops, boarded a shuttle with priests and religious leaders bound for immigration court.
When they arrived, the scene was tense. At that time, ICE agents were routinely arresting people immediately after their hearings. On the fourth floor, where the immigration court is located, agents lined the corridors, holding papers with names and photographs.
But as Fr. Santarosa remembers it, something shifted. As the group of bishops and priests entered—12 or 15 people in all—the agents took notice. And then, gradually, they disappeared. No arrests were made that day. The agents left the building.
Later, when reporters asked Bishop Pham whether this was a one-time action, he answered without hesitation. No, he said. This would continue, and he asked Fr. Santarosa to lead it.
What began as a simple gesture soon took on a more formal shape. In August, Fr. Santarosa helped launch a pilot program to train volunteers. The response surprised even him. Dozens attended the first sessions—mostly lay people of all faith traditions.
Since then, the ministry has grown steadily. Today, more than 460 volunteers have been trained, and volunteers now maintain a daily presence at immigration court. During orientation, volunteers learn court protocols and the legal realities migrants face. Just as important, Fr. Santarosa says, they learn what the ministry is not.
“We don’t interfere. We don’t obstruct arrests,” he explains. “Our goal is simply to be present.”
That presence can take several forms. Volunteers meet before each shift to pray together, then enter the building as a group. Inside, they review the docket, note which courtrooms are active, and quietly spread out. Some accompaniment is pre-arranged, requested by individuals or families. More often, it is informal—waiting in hallways, making eye contact, offering a word of reassurance or prayer to someone who is understandably nervous.
The ministry also extends beyond courtrooms to ICE check-ins, which Fr. Santarosa describes as especially dangerous moments for migrants, given the high risk of arrest.
What sustains the effort, he says, is its simplicity. No slogans. No speeches. Just people showing up to stand with those navigating an intimidating system alone.
For Fr. Santarosa, the work is unmistakably Jesuit. Accompaniment is not a theory but a practice—one rooted in presence, restraint and trust that God is already at work in the encounter itself. He says, “It’s about being there.”
Across the Province, a Shared Call
The stories shared here offer just a glimpse of the ways Jesuits and their collaborators are responding to the realities facing migrants and immigrant families. From schools and parishes to legal clinics and immigration courts, the expressions of accompaniment vary, but the underlying commitment is the same: to remain close to those living with fear and uncertainty, and to respond with faith made visible through action.
