Love Knows No Borders

This 18-page guide covers the UCC’s values on immigration and provides practical guidance on how churches should respond to immigration enforcement activity, particularly during a period of heightened immigration enforcement.

The resource includes definitions of key terms, information about ICE, and an explanation of the rights houses of worship have. It also outlines seven concrete actions congregations can take, ranging from developing internal response procedures and displaying welcoming signage, to supporting refugee resettlement, joining mutual aid networks, and participating in educational trips to the southern border.

Sensitive Locations FAQ for Houses of Worship

This guide breaks down what the rescission of the ‘Sensitive Locations’ policy means for houses of worship, including your rights, best practices to protect your congregation, and how to continue serving immigrant communities with confidence.

Additionally, you can watch this webinar entitled “Sanctuary: Legal Considerations for Faith Communities,” in which Heather Kimmel (UCC General Council) discusses the legal risks congregations should consider when engaging in sanctuary ministries.

Know Your Rights, Know You’re Loved

Know Your Rights, Know You’re Loved is a bilingual resource available in English and Spanish that combines practical legal knowledge with spiritual affirmation. It outlines your legal rights when confronted by ICE agents and offers biblical grounding for the inherent dignity and worthiness of every person, reminding us that God’s love extends to all people regardless of immigration status.

Print this resource out and share it widely within your congregation so every member of your community has access to both the legal tools and spiritual grounding they may need.

We extend thanks to the Colectivo Latinx Ministries for their assistance with translation.

Caught in the snare of a bureaucracy that treated people like commodities, Jesus flipped the script with the Greatest Commandment: Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:36-40). Jesus amplified his prophetic ancestors who demanded, “Do not stand by while your neighbor’s blood is shed! You must not take revenge nor hold a grudge against any of your people; instead, you must love your neighbor as yourself.” (Lev. 19:16-18) The foundation of our faith is a love that can’t be merely passive. We are called to speak up, act up, and rise up with Christian love:

We encourage you to use the provided worship materials centered around the theme of Love Knows No Borders including prayers, litanies, sermons, and more to help your congregation engage this sacred work together.

Thank you to Rev. Dr. Cheryl Lindsay, Minister for Worship & Theology, for helping curate this collection.

Share these resources with your congregation! Download our bulletin insert today to share these justice resources with your community.

Together, we can equip your members to take meaningful action and stand in solidarity with our neighbors who need it most.

Click on the links below to send an email to your members of Congress about the following:

🧡 Protect Sensitive Locations
🧡 No Additional Funding for ICE
🧡 Protect the Refugee Admissions Program
🧡 Protect Trans and Nonbinary Civil Rights
🧡 Don’t see the issue you’re looking for? Write your own message for justice here

Prefer handwritten letters? You can download these postcards to write a message to your members of Congress urging them to choose love, compassion, and justice in their decisions. You can look up your elected officials and mailing addresses here.  

💌 Download horizontal postcards here
💌 Download vertical postcards here

▷ Since Trump came into office, ICE has deported more than 605,000 people. ICE is increasingly targeting people who have no criminal records and the majority of those detained and deported have no criminal convictions. Detention facilities across the US are over capacity by more than 13,500 people.  

▷Immigration enforcement officers continue to harass and illegally detain Native Americans, and the Trump Administration is pursuing multiple drilling and mining projects on their sacred land.  

▷ The indefinite refugee ban remains in place. Over 120,000 refugees whose cases were conditionally approved by U.S. officials after years of screening and vetting remain stranded in countries abroad. 

▷ At the end of January 2026, ICE reported more than 70,000 people were detained in 225 ICE facilities throughout the U.S. More people have been detained by ICE now than ever before in U.S. history. 

▷ The administration has pursued a range of policies aimed at discouraging legal immigration to the U.S. They have revoked Temporary Protected Status from previously protected populations, moved to denaturalize foreign-born U.S. citizens, and shut down all immigration from 75 countries. More than 1.6 million legal non-citizen residents have lost their right to stay in the U.S. The President also seeks to end birthright citizenship. 

▷ The escalation of militarized and violent force against immigrants from Border Patrol, Immigration Customs and Enforcement, and the National Guard is the harshest, most inhumane action against immigrants we’ve seen in modern history. 2 U.S. citizens have been murdered by ICE in Minneapolis. Government power is being marshaled to target specific peoples, justify mass removals, and normalize cruelty under the guise of “order.”  

▷ The Big Brutal Bill passed by Congress in the summer of 2025 takes health care coverage away from over 15 million people, impacting the most vulnerable and people living with disabilities. It is also set to shutter hundreds of hospitals in the U.S. and kick more than 2 million people off food stamps, all while increasing total immigration enforcement funding by 170 billion.     

▷ President Trump sent more than 2,200 National Guard soldiers to DC, clearing over 50 homeless encampments, forcing the unhoused, without any assistance, to find somewhere else to sleep. This model, according to the President, will be replicated in every sanctuary city. 

▷ Since Sensitive Locations protections were rescinded in January 2025, immigration enforcement can now conduct operations in churches and other houses of worship, hospitals, and schools. Schools are seeing a sharp rise in chronic absenteeism and churches are also witnessing lower attendance. 

▷ Dire, unsafe conditions in detention centers have led to medical neglect, malnutrition, violent attacks against migrants, and even deaths. For the tens of thousands in detention, fluorescent lights shine around the clock, rotten, spoiled food is served for meals, there is dirty drinking water, necessary medical care is lacking, and there are multiple reports of physical and sexual violence against detainees.   

▷ The Trump Administration is also attacking the Trans community, by threatening federal funding for schools that include any mention of transgender in their sex education, kicking trans people out of the military and pulling pensions from trans veterans, and cancelling all transgender-related grants.  

As people of faith, we are called to break down the walls and borders that divide our communities and keep us from one another. Our historic Resolutions of Witness and our Just World Covenants provide pathways for the United Church of Christ to continue our legacy of prophetic witness and proclaim boldly what we believe: 

▷ As an immigrant welcoming church, the UCC has denounced the federal government’s actions that strip the due process and constitutional rights from immigrants.

Recent News Articles

▷ UCC clergy members among those arrested at “Pray with Your Feet Day of Action: ICE Out of Our Communities” (Feb 3, 2026)
▷ “God is with Us”: UCC clergy discuss efforts of resistance in Minnesota (Jan 27, 2026)
▷ Meet six UCC clergy who traveled to Minneapolis to put faith in action (Jan 27, 2026)