End Family Detention - 4 Day Pilgrimage
Rev. Dianne Garcia of Roca de Refugio Mennonite Church led a small number of us – faith leaders and advocates on a 90-mile pilgrimage/walk from the South Texas Residential Complex (ICE Family Detention run by CoreCivic) over four days that swelled to a final march with the larger community walking to the downtown San Antonio Immigration Court.
"We hope to remind the San Antonio community, in particular, that the invisible suffering of thousands of adults and children is rooted in these detention centers that are so close to our city, you could walk there. We also hope to walk in solidarity with those who suffer, on a walk that itself is not easy, ending at the courthouse with the prayer that all of our immigrant brothers and sisters could be reunited with one another and with us in a future world built on our shared humanity." - Pastor Dianne
We were joined by faith leaders and advocates from the National Coalition to End Family and Child Detention, Free Families, Unitarian Universalists, the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice and also Tsuru for Solidarity, an anti-detention organization made up of Japanese internment survivors and their descendants and supporters, Children's Defense Fund – All coming together to call for an end to Incarcerating Children and Families.
At the conclusion of the pilgrimage, Pastor Dianne shared this challenge and prayer – They say Love cannot win. Watch us Walk!
I'm so grateful to you all for being here. For walking. Some of you have just joined us, some have walked today, some from the start. Some of you have walked with me starting 90 miles ago at Dilley. Thank you for showing up and thank you for staying.
Right now, I'm going to be honest, I feel like I couldn't walk another step. I'm tired. You might feel tired too. We are tired of bearing witness to stories that break our hearts over and over again. We are tired of the work of having to shout the truth louder than the mountain of lies. We are tired of abiding in the fear and anxiety that hangs over our community. We are tired of the constant hum of oppression, racism, and violence forcing us to have to rebuild our hope from scratch again and again.
But we walked today because even in our exhaustion, we refuse to allow our immigrant brothers and sisters to walk alone. We walked because every step is a declaration of our love. Every step is a statement that we will not stand still and be silent while our neighbors, our friends, and our family suffers. We will not stand still while children are imprisoned. We will not stand still while parents are kidnapped and disappeared, while children are left to wonder where their mom or dad has gone. We will not stand still while our community is terrorized.
We walked today and we will keep walking. Your feet are holding you up right now. They carried you here. And they will continue to lead you and our community toward justice tomorrow. Because we may be tired, but we are not stopping. Justice requires endurance. We have to keep going. We do not arrive at justice in one day or one step. We make the way in the ongoing refusal to stop walking. Even when progress feels slow, every step creates the path that leads us towards justice. We make the road towards the future we want for our children and our children's children by walking it every day.
We are walking along the road that our elders and our ancestors first built, the way that they first marked out for us. They marched for justice. They saw a vision of a future in which Love reigned and they started to walk towards that vision. And we continue to walk that same road. We continue to put down signposts and continue to flatten down this rough earth. And we will continue, marking the way for the generations that will come after us, walking the path towards justice. Walking the path towards love. We will endure.
And when we feel tired, we will lean on one another. We will carry one another. We will welcome in our neighbors to walk beside us. We will draw on our collective strength, but we will not give up until all families are together and all families are free. We will keep walking until no child has to worry that their mother or father won't return home to will keep walking until our communities are safe again. We will keep walking until detention centers are closed. Until our children don't have to wonder if they might be kidnapped on the way to school and thrown in prison. We will walk to the Family Detention Center and back again until we live in a world that overflows with love. Where all people from all nations and backgrounds are welcomed, honored, and valued. We will take another step and another and another. We will keep marching and praying and organizing and telling the truth. We will endure.
Leader: They say love can't win —
Crowd: Watch us walk!
Leader: They say this road is pointless —
Crowd: Watch us walk!
Leader: They say justice will never come -
Crowd: Watch us walk!
Leader: Step by step -
Crowd: The road appears!
Leader: March by march —
Crowd: Justice rises!
Leader: Generation by generation -
Crowd: Love endures!
Love endures, love endures, and whenever you feel tired and whenever you feel hope and whenever you start thinking we've lost, I want you to hear your neighbor say —
Watch Us Walk!
Background (from Amnesty USA)
President Obama ended family detention at the Hutto Detention Center in Texas in his first year in office, only to bring large-scale family detention back in 2014. By the end of 2014, the Karnes Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas (Karnes) and the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas (Dilley) had opened and a fourth facility, the Artesia Family Residential Center in New Mexico, had both opened and closed amongst a firestorm of criticism. With Berks, Karnes, and Dilley all detaining families, the family detention program in the U.S. became the largest since the incarceration of Japanese Americans in the 1940s, with a combined capacity to jail over 3,000 people.
Obama’s policy of family detention paved the way for the expansion of family detention by the first Trump administration. President Biden promised to end family detention on the campaign trail and repeatedly condemned the Trump administration for detaining families. In December 2021 the Biden administration stopped detaining families at Berks, Karnes, and Dilley until the Trump administration brought the policy back in March of 2025, reopening Karnes and Dilley.