Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership Files Federal Lawsuit After ICE Blocks Sisters and Clergy from Ministering at Broadview Facility
On Wednesday, November 19, CSPL and several Catholic sisters and clergy members filed a federal lawsuit alleging that DHS, ICE, and senior federal officials unlawfully blocked clergy and women religious from providing religious ministry—including prayer and Holy Communion—to detainees at the Broadview ICE facility. They argue that these restrictions violate the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).
Media Advisory:
Despite repeated attempts to follow DHS and ICE protocols, faith leaders were denied access for pastoral care and Communion in violation of constitutional and federal religious freedom protections.
Copy of lawsuit available here
Video from November 1st People’s Mass Here
Please credit photos as: by Bryan Sebastian courtesy of Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership
CHICAGO— Faith leaders with the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) filed a lawsuit today seeking access to the detention center in Broadview to provide those inside Communion and pastoral care. Broadview has long been a site where Catholic sisters and clergy have offered pastoral care to detainees. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys Tom Geoghegan and Patrick V. Dahlstrom.
CSPL attempted for several weeks to follow DHS and ICE rules to gain pastoral access to the Broadview detention facility, and these efforts were repeatedly ignored or denied. The complaint argues that ICE’s refusal to allow clergy to pray with detainees or offer Holy Communion violates the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).
“Despite the long history of religious access to the Broadview detention center established through the persistence and perseverance of the late Sr. JoAnn Persch, RSM, and Sr. Pat Murphy, RSM, recent months have brought shifting, contradictory, and often opaque communication from DHS and ICE officials. Faced with this lack of honesty and transparency, we were left with no choice but to file this lawsuit.” said Dr. Michael N. Okinczyc-Cruz, executive director of the Coalition.
Joined by Fr. Larry Dowling, Sr. Jeremy Midura, CSSF, Fr. Dennis Berry, S.T. and Fr. Dan Hartnett, SJ as plaintiffs, CSPL faith leaders allege that the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and senior federal officials unlawfully blocked clergy and women religious from providing religious ministry—including prayer and Holy Communion—to detainees at the Broadview ICE facility.
“For more than a decade, Catholic sisters and clergy— including the late Sister JoAnn Persch—were permitted weekly entry to Broadview to pray with detainees and offer pastoral care,” Sister Jeremy Midura, a Felician sister, said. “These visits proceeded peacefully for years, with no reported safety or security issues.”
Beginning in September 2025 with “Chicago Midway Blitz,” the suit states, ICE dispersed peaceful prayer groups with officers in camouflage and installed fencing cutting off access to areas previously open to clergy. The group sent multiple letters and emails to ICE and DHS, attempted in-person visits to the Chicago ICE field office, and gave more than the one-week notice ICE publicly stated was required. They requested only a small, trained delegation of sisters and clergy be allowed inside.
“Officials allege that it suddenly became too dangerous for clergy and women religious to visit the detention center,” Father Dan Hartnett said. “But in reality the only danger was to their false claims about arresting the ‘worst of the worst.’” Fr. Hartnett was referring to data just now emerging that many were arrested on false pretenses. “Only 16 of over 600 detained by ICE in Chicago area have criminal histories, records show,” according to a CBS News report Saturday November 15.
In the suit, plaintiffs ask the court to declare the restrictions unlawful, and require ICE to restore reasonable, supervised pastoral access so clergy and women religious can pray with detainees and provide sacraments to those who request them. They also stress their willingness to follow the law and any reasonable, standard security procedures as well as the fact similar access has long been routine at Broadview under multiple administrations.
The suit also makes the point that the clergy and women religious involved have decades of jail and detention ministry experience nationwide. Sadly, the person with the longest experience providing pastoral care, Sister JoAnn Persch, passed away Friday, November 14 at the age of 91.
Persch was one of the leaders of a CSPL delegation that tried to bring Communion and pastoral care to detainees on All Saints’ Day, November 1 during a Catholic Mass held outside the detention center in Broadview. “The response was no,” she told the crowd.
Another leader at the Mass and public action that day, Father David Inczauskis, SJ, noted after the event that “danger” might not be the reason ICE has been denying the group’s request at all: “Perhaps they don’t want to allow us in because they know the conditions inside are inhumane and they know we would denounce that,” Father Inczauskis said. “Our request is so simple, to do something the Catholic Church does every day. We are united in Christ. We will not stop denouncing the evil of detention and deportation. We cannot be silent in the face of oppression. We will persist until justice flows freely like a river.”
About the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership: CSPL is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-generational Catholic and Christian-rooted coalition of over 50 parishes, religious orders, universities and community organizations that labors to transform racial, economic, social and environmental systemic structures through grassroots coalition building, community organizing, and liberative formation. More at csplaction.org.
Media Contacts:
Sarah Rand, sarah@rand-strategies.com, 312-513-1035
Gordon Mayer, gordon@gordonmayercommunications.com, 312-307-0133
Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez, joanna@csplaction.org, 331-343-7301
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