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CWS program meets immigration detainees' spiritual needs
Imam Aziz Abdin, CWS Religious Services Coordinator, El Centro, CA.
Photo: Nana Abdin
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"Chaplain, I'm Catholic. Can I get a rosary?" "I'm Muslim. Can I get a prayer rug?" "What does it mean in Deuteronomy, here where it says ...?" "My mother is very ill. Can you help?" "Chaplain, I need to talk to someone."
Responding to such requests is all in a day's work for staff of the Church World Service Religious Services Program (RSP), which in July will mark its third anniversary of ministry at eight U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers.
These centers hold non-citizens detained for a wide variety of reasons, including asylum seekers, persons with visa problems, and persons convicted of crimes for which they are deportable.
The Religious Services Program strives to ensure that worship opportunities, scriptures, and one-on-one pastoral care are available to these men and women from around the world, regardless of creed, language, or country of origin, said Rev. John Shaia, RSP National Coordinator, Washington, D.C.
RSP also staff work with the detention centers to accommodate, as best they can, such religious requirements as observant Muslims' need to fast during daylight hours during the month of Ramadan, unleavened and other special foods for the Jewish Passover, and observant Buddhists' meatless diets.
They coordinate a cadre of community volunteers from a variety of faith groups, offer prayers and pastoral counseling to staff, and promote the importance of detainees' spiritual care.
Detainees' religious and ethnic diversity adds to the complexity of the assignment. On one occasion, a Guatemalan woman held at Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas, needed pastoral counseling -- but spoke neither English nor Spanish. Rev. Luis Alvarado, RSP Coordinator, found a translator -- another detainee who spoke both Spanish and the woman's Indian language.
At Krome Service Processing Center in Miami, Fla., one day's census found that the detainees present hailed from 71 different countries. At Aguadilla Service Processing Center in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, RSP Coordinator Tomas Pagan Ramos reported distributing Bibles in several languages, the Koran in English and Spanish, prayer rugs, Holy Beads, the Muslim calendar, and religious literature for the Rastafarian and Sikh detainees.
 Volunteer chaplain Edgardo J. Farias leads a prayer service at Krome. Photo: Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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A ministry of presence
The Religious Services Program brings "a sense of calm and reassurance of faith to both detainees and staff" in a context often marked by chaos, said Rev. Andreas Thode, RSP Coordinator at Krome. "For the most part, we serve through a ministry of presence."
Among highlights of the work so far, Rev. Thode said, was arranging the baptism of a detainee who had established a new connection with God while serving a prison term.
"It was simple -- and in being simple, it was beautiful," he said. Reflecting on the moment later, the detainee said, "I remember moments of great happiness in my life -- the day I graduated from high school, the day I got married, when I bought my first house, when my first child was born. But I can't even begin to describe my joy on the day I was baptized."
First Muslim coordinator
Imam Aziz Abdin is the RSP's newest -- and first Muslim -- Coordinator. He began work March 26 at El Centro Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service Processing Center in El Centro, California, after serving as a volunteer chaplain there for nine years.
Active in several national and local organizations that promote interfaith understanding, he also serves as Imam and Director of the Imperial Valley Islamic Center and is a long-time prison and hospital chaplain.
"I'm a reaching-out person," Imam Abdin said. "For me, building bridges is more important than anything else. As a chaplain, I listen a lot and talk a lot."
Imam Abdin's predecessor, Louise Bickley, illustrated his approach with the following story from his volunteer days.
One Thursday, while the imam was holding scripture study with Muslim detainees, she was making her rounds and encountered several Iraqis in the barracks. They spoke no English -- only Syriac (Aramaic) and Arabic. Bickley hurried to find the imam, who said he would be happy to speak with the men in Arabic and discern their needs.
"The detainees said they were not Muslims, but Chaldean Catholics. They requested prayer books and Bibles in Syriac. I assured them I would obtain the needed resources from San Diego's large Chaldean Catholic community," Bickley said.
"Meanwhile, I asked the detainees if they would like to hold a prayer service with the imam translating my words. They were most grateful for the offer and the prayer service was thus conducted. Then the imam informed the detainees of the time and place for the Sunday Catholic communion service -- and offered to come for the service to translate."
CWS carries out the Religious Services Program in collaboration with Jesuit Refugee Service, which manages the program at detention centers in Florence, Arizona; San Pedro, California; El Paso, Texas, and Batavia, New York.
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