UCC pastor shot by federal agents with pepper round speaks about ‘standing on the side of love’

The Rev. Jorge Bautista has been in national news recently after photos captured the moment when a U.S. immigration officer struck him in the face with a pepper round at an Oct. 23 gathering that began as a prayer vigil in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bautista is a pastor at College Heights Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in San Mateo, California. He reflected with UCC News on this recent experience, the increasingly common occurrence of ICE agents acting with excessive aggression even toward faith leaders, and the call to stand in solidarity with migrants.

In late October, the president announced a surge of immigration enforcement to the Bay Area, following months of such federal surges in a handful of cities, from Los Angeles to Chicago. People in the Bay Area immediately mobilized in support of immigrants, including leaders of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, who organized a prayer vigil at the entrance to Coast Guard Island in Alameda, the site that ICE planned to use as their place of operation. The interfaith group brings together faith leaders to affirm that “all people are sacred across bars and borders.”

It is this prayer vigil that Bautista attended on Oct. 23, where he joined others in holding signs reading, “No ICE or troops in the Bay.” Bautista hoped the presence of clergy could send a message to ICE that they weren’t welcome because they were there to cause people harm, which no one deserves, he said.

“Those of us that showed up as clergy, we believe in always standing on the side of love – and for the love for migrants in this case, knowing that migrants are members of our churches, members of our communities, and that they also deserve to live in peace and with full dignity,” he said. “We knew what these ICE Agents are doing around the country. We knew how they’re harassing and taking people away, separating families, and really hurting them. As clergy, my job, I believe, is to make sure people are experiencing joy in their lives and that they are being respected and not abused, and to remind all of us that we’re all divine beings on this earth, and therefore we all should be respected.”

A quick escalation

The prayer vigil was scheduled to begin at 7 a.m., and things moved extremely quickly, Bautista said. He ended up in the emergency room at 7:40 a.m.

It was soon after he joined other gathered clergy that he spotted an ICE caravan speeding toward them with a sense of aggression. As agents began pointing their weapons at the protestors, his instinct was to move closer to the front of the crowd with intentions to help deescalate the situation.

“I believe in always standing and using my body and tried to make a statement like, ‘Look, we’re here in peace. Stop. There’s no need for your weapons,’” he said.

When Bautista noticed an agent coming directly toward him, he believed they could talk. But right after he offered the words, “We come in peace,” the agent shot him with a pepper round that hit directly in his lower face.

“I just didn’t think he was going to shoot me. I gave him the benefit of the doubt – even though I’ve seen all the images. I’ve seen how aggressive they have been with everyone else, and how they’ve been aggressive and abusive with me in the past. I just wanted to hold hope and believe it could be different this time, even though they were already in a certain spirit of aggressiveness, where they just didn’t care about us. He did not hesitate. He had already made a decision he was going to shoot me the moment he started approaching me. No warnings. No other forms of procedures first. It just felt like they had no procedures whatsoever,” he said.

Bautista received medical care and recovered after several days of experiencing burning eyes and headaches. He was told by the doctor who treated him that if the shot had been closer to his eyes, it could have caused permanent damage.

‘A split in politics and faith’

Bautista is not the first person to be targeted with these less-than-lethal chemical weapons by immigration agents. In a prominent Chicago incident, the Presbyterian Minister Rev. David Black was shot by ICE agents multiple times with pepper balls.

When U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson was recently asked about these instances of ICE aggression toward clergy in an Oct. 28 press conference, he responded by telling those who protest ICE, including members of the clergy, to “get out of their face and let them do their job.”

“It’s interesting that right now it’s mainline Protestants and Jewish clergy who are on the front lines, protesting this government and this attack on migrants,” Bautista reflected. “It is very clear that, in one sense, you could say it’s an attack on our religious freedom. On the other hand, it’s also an attack on a certain school of thought of Christianity … There’s a split in politics and a split in faith.”

Bautista’s faith leads him to follow Jesus “who steps into the centers of power and says, ‘Wait a second, this is not right,’” he said. Instead, Jesus consistently called people toward “standing on the side of love.”

“Our migrant communities have been criminalized, and I show up to say otherwise. I show up to say the right of human movement around the world is a human right,” he said.  

‘A good time to organize’

This recent aggression was not the first that Bautista has experienced from immigration enforcement. He was arrested during a protest at the U.S.-Mexico Border in 2018 when, he described, Border Patrol agents took him into isolation and roughed him up, leaving painful bruises on his back.  

“But to see Border Patrol way out here in Chicago and Portland – there’s no border here. Why are you way out here?” he said. “Right now, the government is using all of its agencies to attack migrants. It’s like a full-on attack on migrants – citizens also, and if you’re a person of color, most likely you’re going to be targeted too. I think this is a good time for us to organize around what it means to decriminalize being a migrant in this country.”

‘Keep believing, keep showing up … whatever it takes’

After one day of protesters standing against the immigration enforcement surge in the Bay Area and creating grassroots efforts to protect their neighbors, the surge was called off.

Amid all of the dehumanizing actions taken by ICE, Bautista reflected, there is hope where communities have been responding with love and support.

“Communities are showing up for each other, and that gives me a lot of hope. Because we know there’s power when we get organized. When we come together, we are able to bring change, and I know we’re going to bring that change. It’s going to happen. So let’s keep believing in one another. Let’s keep showing up for each other. Let’s keep organizing. Let’s keep screaming – doing whatever it takes to really get our message out.”

This moment affords people of faith a powerful opportunity.

“I have hope that out of this, a lot of faith leaders will continue to share, especially in the United Church of Christ, why we stand on the side of our queer sisters and brothers, trans sisters and brothers, why we stand on the side of migrants, why we stand on the side of women, and so on,” he offered. “Let’s keep amplifying that voice, because we’re doing something right. We’re doing something really good.”

Watch the full interview with UCC News.

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