As leaders of faith, we stand together in witness of the challenging, sometimes heart wrenching realities that immigrants and refugees in our communities are facing.
Each of our spiritual traditions teach the moral obligation that we have towards those whose lives have prompted them to sojourn from the land of their birth to seek out safety, security and prosperity.
The obligation to greet our neighbor, those who sojourn among us, the stranger and the foreigner with love and respect resonates throughout all our faith traditions, amplified over the generations by the brightest minds of each.
We come together to express our collective concern that those teachings are not being lived out in our time.
We note with disappointment the increasing hostility in our nation and in our community toward those immigrants and refugees who live among us. We have heard them vilified, denigrated and dehumanized as criminal threats to the safety and well-being of those around them, words that upbraid our sense of moral responsibility and demand our action.
Of particular concern are the abhorrent conditions faced by those who have been taken into custody by our immigration officials. Detention centers like the one in the Everglades, with restrictions of access to adequate food, clean water and humane shelter — the basic needs that each and every human being should expect — are cruel and morally repugnant. Preventing access to legal advice, the care and concern of family and friends, clergy and pastoral support, tramples on our American and our religious values of justice, family and community. Deporting people to countries with which they have no ties cruelly deprives them of what little they might have to rebuild their lives that a homeland could offer.
We appreciate each and every nation’s responsibility to promulgate and enforce boundaries of who may enter and who may stay, and we call upon our elected officials to enact long overdue reforms of our nation’s immigration system that offer clarity, common sense and respect.
At the same time, we call upon each and every law enforcement agency and law enforcement officer to fulfill their moral responsibility to recognize and respect the humanity of each and every human being. They ought to remind themselves of this responsibility while they carry out enforcement actions, interact with the public, and whenever they act in name of these United States.
We pray for those who have been separated from their families and their communities. We ask for God’s favor in granting them patience and comfort during these difficult moments in their lives. We pray that all can come to appreciate the beauty of God’s varied creation we call humanity, and that we should all merit His blessings through the works of our hands.
Rabbi Ashira Boxman, Temple Beth El
The Rev. Dr. Andrew D. Hagen, Boca Helping Hands
Rabbi Amy Grossblatt Pessah, Temple Beth El
B.J. Saul Madrikha, Congregation Beth Adam
The Rev. Andrew J. Sherman, St Gregory’s Episcopal Church
Rabbi Greg Weisman, Temple Beth El
Rev. Dr. Robyn M. Neville, St Gregory’s Episcopal Church
Rev. Edith A. Love, United Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton
Rabbi Dan Levin, Temple Beth El
Rabbi Laila Haas, Temple Beth El
Dr. Basem Alhalabi, Islamic Center of Boca Raton
Imam Ibrahim Khader, Islamic Center of Boca Raton
Rabbi Hector Epelbaum, B’nai Torah Congregation
The Rev. Juanita Bryant Goode, First United Methodist Church
Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
For the past 20 years, the Boca Raton Interfaith Clergy Association (BRICA) has gathered the religious leaders of Boca Raton for conversation to deepen relationships and understanding among our traditions and to seek ways to work together to serve our community. Together, BRICA engages with community leaders and explores ways to give witness to shared values that unite us as children of God. Learn more at facebook.com/BRICAInterfaith.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2025/09/23/the-plight-of-refugees-moves-people-of-faith-opinion/
