Long after protests ended, this interfaith group rallies to remember LA immigrants taken by ICE

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon in the spring, nearly 30 people — mostly women — gathered in a circle at the base of the steps leading to the Los Angeles Federal Building, where immigration court and services are held. They call themselves the godmothers of the disappeared. 

After a prayer, Katharine Guerrero told the group that famed Tongva Chicana activist Gloria Arellanes taught her the importance of standing together in a circle as a way to break away from lines that divide. This was once a gathering place for the Tongva, the region’s native people. Guerrero quickly noted the history of state and racial violence that spanned the surrounding blocks: unmarked Tongva graves around the nearby church; a slavery auction site; she pointed across the freeway to where 18 Chinese men and children were lynched in 1871. And now, this is the locus of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. 

The godmothers offer an important companion to rapid response, protests and legal aid — all community-led efforts — against the occupation of Los Angeles, the campaign that started a year ago with belligerent, daytime raids in the region’s immigrant communities. The weekly vigil provides 60 minutes of quiet discernment to remember those taken and begin healing once the raids and disappearances have ended. 

A multi-faith group, the L.A. godmothers advocate for the release and return of detainees and those disappeared by immigration agents; an end to divisive federal tactics pitting people against each other; and appeal for a change of heart among law enforcement, immigration agents and military members. 

When the occupation began last June, the streets surrounding the federal building were choked by demonstrators protesting unconstitutional arrests, violent raids and military presence. Guerrero was there as a volunteer medical aide, where she tended to people shot with rubber bullets. 

As actions escalated between sheriff’s deputies, police, federal agents and demonstrators, Guerrero viewed the godmothers’ work as a way to maintain activism and vigilance in a calm, intimate space that starkly contrasted with the surrounding chaos. 

“With godmothers, there’s a disarmament that allows for conversation,” Guerrero explained. “We forget we belong to one another and in those moments, you get the opportunity to remember.”

Guerrero said she witnessed the impact of the group’s presence on the military and national guard, who were deployed here to surround federal properties last summer. She described subtle signs like worried glances beneath helmets and visors and sudden attention to public prayer. 

“We are called to be in solidarity, even if that means the person suited up,” Guerrero said. “That’s the hard work.”

The godmothers named themselves in honor of Argentina’s Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo — the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, or known in English as the Mothers of the Disappeared. They were mothers, aunts and grandmothers who met daily in Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo during the military dictatorship in the late 1970s, and demanded information on loved ones that had been disappeared by military and secret police. 

Rev. Alexia Salvatierra explained that the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo not only prayed for their children, but also the soldiers of Argentina’s military regime.

“They also gave flowers to the soldiers and they won,” Salvatierra said. “They changed the regime and were able to liberate their sons and daughters from prison.” 

The L.A. godmothers have more than flowers to offer. Together, they have raised approximately $22,000 to assist more than 100 families whose members and income earners have been detained. That includes helping pay bail. At least twice, the godmothers have found crying mothers with children outside the detention center, despondent and unsure of how they will afford legal aid. 

The vigil offers a moving meditation. We walked in parallel lines, often guided in song, to two different entrances into the federal complex where detainees are held. First, to the driveway that leads to a subterranean loading dock. 

There, Rosa Manriquez read aloud a short biography of Rutilio Grande, the Salvadoran priest  whose death encouraged Archbishop Oscar Romero to stand up against state repression. Both were murdered by a death squad. Manriquez sang a call and response “God have mercy” three times and began a litany, or the practice of naming saints and calling for their intervention. The names include revolutionaries, artists and organizers — like Emma Goldman, James Baldwin and Octavia Butler — who imagined, advocated and fought for a more just and civil America. 

When the litany concluded, Susan Garcia offered testimony of a recent trip to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, a private prison in the Mojave Desert where many of those detained in Southern California are sent. 

The group then moved to the rear loading dock adjacent to the Metropolitan Detention Center, singing the Black spiritual “Down by the Riverside.” There, Richard Barragan prayed in Spanish through a microphone connected to a small, speaker cabinet on wheels, so detainees and their captors could hear. 

Then, Rev. Heidi Worthen Gamble, led the group in one last song — “Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed on Freedom).”  One by one, we approach the black chain link fence erected last summer. Each individual placed a white daisy around the entrance. 

The flowers are visible to detainees, Manriquez said, but also offerings to federal agents and military members. 

“They don’t have to do this,” Manriquez said. 

None of this had to happen. But now we are living the aftermath. While the immediate focus remains on protecting immigrant communities and people of color wrongfully detained, the godmothers invite us through vigil, prayer and song to consider what comes next, imagining a more just community and country and then get to work — the hard work.