Prayer walk to support Northeast Ohio immigrants and protest ICE raids
Source: The Land
By Ryan Grzybowski, July 16 2025
In late June, a group of Catholic congregations walked around downtown on a warm afternoon, stopping at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist and Public Square to call for the stop of the Immigration and Customs Law Enforcement’s (ICE) raids in the United States. NETWORK the organization behind the prayer walk, held signs and walked in the sunny scorching heat of the afternoon.
“Our prayer walk today is also a civic sacrament, a visible sign of our advocacy for the rights of immigrants, the right to due process,” said an organizer.
About 80 participants held signs and spoke condemning the detention of migrant families by ICE also seeking to call upon Ohio senators to reject the Budget Reconciliation Bill that will gut vital programs that millions of people rely on in order to fund detentions and deportations while adding billions of dollars to the national debt.
“Immigrants are our family members, neighbors, friends, coworkers, and fellow parishioners. This budget reconciliation bill will bring chaos to our communities,”said Annie Kachurek, one of the organizers of the prayer walk, in a press release. “In his first U.S. address, in Chicago on June 14, Pope Leo XIV made clear that compassion demands actions. We are responding to Pope Leo’s call for the compassionate protection of our immigrant neighbors. As people of faith, we are prayerfully and publicly calling on our Senators to reject the budget bill and protect all of us in Ohio and beyond.”
