NEWS

Solidarity march stops in Exeter

Coffin-carrying pilgrimage protests ICE, deaths of immigrant children

Alexander LaCasse alacasse@seacoastonline.com
The Massachusetts contingent of the Immigration Solidarity Pilgrimage was planning to stop at Exeter's Congregational Church Thursday evening before continuing to the Strafford County immigration detention center Friday. Here they are shown carry a child-sized casket in honor of the children they say have died in ICE custody. These marchers are part of multiple groups heading to the ICE facility at the Strafford County jail in Dover. [Karen Greisdorf/Courtesy]

EXETER — The Massachusetts contingent of the four-state immigration solidarity pilgrimage made its way through New Hampshire Thursday.

Demonstrators from New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont on Saturday will converge at the Strafford County jail in Dover, which also houses the largest immigration detention center in the Northeast. The marchers began their pilgrimage Monday from the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston. Organizers said they were planning to stop at the Congregational Church Thursday before continuing to Dover Friday.

Marchers are carrying a child-size coffin with the names and photos of seven immigrant children who have died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Rabbi Margie Klein, an organizer with Essex County Community Organization, which is made up of 40 religious congregations of varying faiths on Massachusetts’ North Shore and part of the national group, Faith in Action.

“We’re marching to mourn the loss of children lost at the hands of ICE and the United States’ broken immigration system,” Klein said when reached by phone along the march. “We need to seize this political moment to call Congress to pass just immigration reform.”

Klein said 200 marchers from Massachusetts have taken part, including clergy from a number of faiths. Upon their arrival at the Strafford County jail, Klein said the four-state delegation will hold a funeral for the immigrant children who have died in federal custody by reciting their names so, “their memory may be for a blessing.”

Klein said as part of the funeral, leaders will call out the names of every presidential candidate for a roll call after the groups invited each person running, demanding they commit to end deportation and detention of immigrants.

“We want the candidates to come lay their hands on the casket to feel the weight of the dead,” the Rev. Dr. Wendy von Courter said along the march. “We want the candidates to claim accountability for our (immigration) system; we all have to. Third, we demand candidates commit to ending deportation in their first days in office.”

Roughly 500 people are participating in the march between the four states’ contingents, according to Klein.

The Rev. Dr. Andre Bennett called the pilgrimage a “moral cause.” He said marching the 76 miles between the JFK Federal Building and Dover “paled in comparison to the thousands of miles families have traveled to arrive at the U.S. border.

“I can’t sit down any longer and let this happen in my name, they’re traveling thousands of miles running away from a situation our country created,” Bennett said. “We’re at a time in our nation’s history where we have thousands of children in private prisons who are forced to drink their own urine and sleep in their own waste.”

According to von Courter, their pilgrimage was imperative to save the soul of America.

“My heart is dying as I hold crying children in immigration court as they watch their parents on a TV in shackles knowing they may never see them again,” von Courter said. “Our country’s soul is dying a little more each day as this goes on.”

Anyone interested in joining or supporting the march can text “pilgrimage” to (617) 977-5194 for information. The pilgrimage will reconvene at the Congregational Church at 8 a.m. Friday before resuming the march at 8:30 a.m. and continue to Dover.