South Bend community members pray for ICE detainees

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Community members, faith leaders, and advocates gathered at St. Peter's United Church of Christ for a prayer service calling for an end to ICE detention at Miami Correctional Facility.

The event was a coordinated weekend of action organized by the Indiana Organizing Project, with similar gatherings held across Indiana.

Carrie Bowie, who serves on the leadership team of the Michiana Alliance for Democracy, said the Indiana Organizing Project's research shows the facility holds roughly 800 detainees while staffed at only about a third of the level needed, and that hundreds of medication doses have gone missing.

"The more I read about these stories of the immigrants and their families, the more I'm aware that they're just like me and just like my next-door neighbors. Every bed in that detainment facility is a family."

Bowie continues to say, "This is one way to reach out and tell them that we're here and we're praying for them and we want things to get better."

The service included singing and testimonials, with several attendees sharing stories of families affected by immigration detention and deportation.

according to Bowie two detainees have died at the facility this year, and she also said roughly 70% of those held have no criminal record.

"It's too hard, horrible to even think about what that's doing to the families around us, to the situations immigrant neighborhoods or in any neighborhood, it's our Hoosier tax dollars that are keeping these men in detainment and so we have a voice and we can speak out about that."