Ravi Ragbir Honored By Church That Helped Fight To Free Him

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NY — Often clad in collars and stoles, Christian clergy have been at the forefront of many recent rallies decrying immigrant-rights activist Ravi Ragbir's Jan. 11 arrest.

As executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City, an interfaith alliance that works to protect immigrants from deportation, Ragbir is known to faith leaders as a witness to the Gospels' mandate to stand on the side of the oppressed.

Ragbir joined their ranks, in a sense, on Sunday, less than a week after his release from Immigrant and Customs Enforcement detention. The Episcopal Diocese of Long Island awarded him the Bishop's Cross, a rare high honor for community service. Bishop Lawrence Provenzano also named Ragbir an "ecumenical canon," recognizing his immigration work as part of the church's ministry.

In the pulpit Sunday at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights, Ragbir attributed his release from jail Monday to the community of activists he helped grow. But as his possible deportation on Saturday looms, he said it will be crucial that they continue to fight immigration enforcement efforts that force people to live in constant fear.

"That's a public health crisis that we are in right now, when not (only) our children but also our adults are debilitated — they are weak because of this fear," Ragbir told a crowd of nearly 90 people in the church.

Ragbir came to the U.S. from Trinidad and Tobago in 1991. A 2001 conviction for wire fraud led a judge to order him deported in 2006, but he was allowed to stay as long as he checked in with ICE annually.

ICE decided to deport him last month amid a ramping-up of immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump. The agency says he's exhausted his legal options and has no basis to stay in the country.

ICE jailed Ragbir Jan. 11 ahead of what was then his imminent deportation, first in Miami and then at the upstate Orange County Correctional Facility. A federal judge ordered him released last Monday, saying his detention was unconstitutional and "unnecessarily cruel."

But ICE has ordered him to report for deportation on Saturday, the day after a federal court hearing at which a stay blocking his removal could be lifted. The New Sanctuary Coalition is planning a rally Saturday outside the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service's Lower Manhattan offices, where Ragbir was first arrested.

Ragbir compared his allies' work of accompanying immigrants to ICE check-ins — and their protests in recent weeks — to Jesus' healing of a crowd of sick people as depicted in the Gospel of Mark. Even when advocates are silent in those meetings, he said, they change the hearts of people within ICE. For example, Ragbir said the ICE official who ordered his arrest drove him from Federal Plaza to Judson Memorial Church after his release last week.

"We have trained people to become great witnesses, and that witnessing in Federal Plaza has started to change what happens in immigration court," Ragbir said.

The Bishop's Cross is one of the Episcopal Church's highest honors. The bishop himself awards it "in recognition of someone's outstanding ministry" within the diocese, which covers Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, Provenzano said. The last one in the Long Island diocese was awarded about a year ago.

Ragbir's status as an ecumenial canon gives him the "privileges, the rights and the protection of the church" in recognition of his "prophetic witness and the sacrifice of (his) own life in the midst of thise work," Provenzano said.

Churches have stepped up in recent months to actively shield immigrants from ICE, whose agents do not enter houses of worship because they are considered "sensitive" locations.

The Diocese of Long Island passed a resolution in November to become a "sanctuary diocese," urging its churches "to ensure the safety and security of the immigrant community." Amanda Morales, a Guatemalan immigrant and mother of three, took refuge from ICE at Holyrood Episcopal Church in Washington Heights in August and has lived there since.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday. But the agency's acting director, Thomas Homan, reportedly had harsh words last week for so-called sanctuary cities that aim to protect immigrants by limiting cooperation with ICE.

"People ask me all the time, 'So why’d you arrest the guy who’s been here 15 years and has two kids?'" Homan said Wednesday in a speech at the Border Security Expo, according to the Washington Examiner. "Because he had his due process, he got his order from the judge to leave this country. He’s gotta leave."

(Lead image: Ravi Ragbir speaks after receiving the Bishop's Cross on Sunday at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights. Photo by Noah Manskar)