Ash Wednesday Vigil at the Elizabeth Detention Center

“In migrants the Church has always contemplated the image of Christ who said, “I was a stranger and you made me welcome” (Mt 25:35). Their condition is, therefore, a challenge to the faith and love of believers, who are called on to heal the evils caused by migration and discover the plan God pursues through it…” From the PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE PASTORAL CARE OF MIGRANTS AND ITINERANT PEOPLE (The love of Christ towards migrants)

Please join IRATE (the Interfaith Refugee Action Team - Elizabeth) and Pax Christi NJ as we begin our Lenten journey and gather to offer our prayers for the grace to recognize the face of Christ in immigrants and the courage to show them the radical hospitality of the Gospel. We will meet for a prayer service and to distribute ashes in front of the Elizabeth Detention Center, where approximately 300 refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants are being held. The service will be followed by a fasting soup supper at the St. Joseph’s Social Service Center.

6PM, at the Elizabeth Detention Center,

625 Evans Street, Elizabeth NJ 07201

Followed by a fasting soup supper at the St Joseph’s Social Service Center, 118 Division St.

Organized by St Joseph’s Social Service Center, Pax Christi NJ and IRATE/First Friends

Contact firstfriends2@juno.com or 908-965-0455 for more information

IRATE is an alliance of grassroots organizations whose members believe that the current U.S. policy of detaining immigrants in prison-like conditions is contrary to our tradition of welcoming refugees. Currently in New Jersey, the Bureau of Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) has some 300 people detained at the Elizabeth Detention Center and an unknown number of people in county jails throughout the state.

For more information on immigration detention go to www.irateweb.org, www.detentionwatchnetwork.org or www.cliniclegal.org