As Philadelphia gears up to celebrate the nation’s 250th, a group of political and interfaith leaders held a vigil Thursday at Christ Church to honor those who died in ICE custody.
The event comes a day before the nation’s birthday celebrations but a week after the Supreme Court’s decision to take Haitians and Syrians off temporary protection status, opening them up to deportation.
Nathalie Cerin spoke at the vigil about her experience as a Haitian-American on TPS, which allows people whose home countries are unable to accommodate them a way to stay in the U.S. legally. Cerin said she was still celebrating Haiti’s two goals against Morocco in a World Cup game (before ultimately losing) when she heard of the Supreme Court’s decision to end TPS for Haitians.
Cerin also said her experience on TPS had been a confusing one that left her and others in limbo.
“The toughest part about being a TPS recipient is the ambiguity, and that’s by design,” Cerin said. “The confusion keeps you from making long-term plans. It traps you in a prison of conjecture, whispers of ICE raids and stories of people in detention centers who didn’t make it out.”
These vigils and ICE protests happen consistently, said Alisa Lasater Wailoo of First United Methodist of Germantown, who attends the demonstrations every Monday. Demonstrations also happen on Wednesdays and Fridays, Lasater Wailoo said.
U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Democrat who represents South Philadelphia and Delaware County, also spoke Thursday, thanking the city’s religious community for stepping up during a time of need.
“Our faith communities have stepped up and have really been a bright light,” Scanlon said. “They’ve stepped up in defense of the humanity of our neighbors and the strangers among us. They have stepped up as individuals to bring awareness and muster opposition to the administration’s activities, and they’ve stepped up in service to those who are suffering from that cruelty.”
Scanlon tied her speech to the country’s founding, reflecting on the words of Thomas Paine, the Founding Father who wrote Common Sense, calling for independence from Great Britain.
“He [Paine] also reminds us we are all called to contribute to the greater good, and it is not in our numbers, but in our unity, that our great strength lies,” Scanlon said. “So I call everyone to hear these words as a calling and an invitation to show up, to shine and to love.”
The vigil concluded with a Ringing of the Bell ceremony, where the names of 50 people who have died while in ICE custody nationwide since Donald Trump took office in 2025 were spoken and followed by a bell toll.
Two of the people honored died at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania: Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir, who died after a medical event, and Chaofeng Ge, whose death was ruled a suicide.
State Sen. Art Haywood, a Democrat who represents parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County, said he hoped attendees would leave remembering that the nation’s future is mutable and that they can make a change.
“I think the main thing I want people to see is a rededication to what the nation has become,” Haywood said. “I am not so much looking back at 1776. 1776 was a very bad year for Africans; that was a year of enslavement. So I’m not that comfortable celebrating, but I think the future of the nation is very powerful.”
Following the vigil held at Christ Church, Haywood, multi-faith leaders, and other attendees walked eight blocks through the hot, muggy streets of Philadelphia to take a stand in front of the ICE detention facility on Cherry Street.
Protesters tied a long red fabric to block the main driveway of the facility. The red cloth was meant to signify the blood of those lost and the red in Betsy Ross’s American flag.
“Today, we mark this line with the same red that runs through Betsy Ross’s flag,” said the Rev. Kipp Gilmore-Clough of Chestnut Hill United Church. “It is a witness to the bloodshed and the lives lost. But it also symbolizes the possibility of unity.”
