In early spring 2017, I began volunteering with a small, all-volunteer, startup Immigration Assistance organization based at a local Episcopal Church. Brayath was a young man serving officially in the “planning and marketing” role, and he brought an abundance of organizational and community organizing skills that the group very much needed. He had previously been with other grass-roots organizations that work to empower immigrants and knew a lot about the issues. His manner of warmly welcoming those coming to us for immigration assistance honored their human dignity amidst their often painful, difficult situations. Brayath was extraordinarily generous in volunteering his time and skill with us and in his kindness to others. He softened the often-chaotic beginnings of the organization and it was a pleasure to work with him.
When he left the organization, I was stunned to learn it was because he too was undocumented, a DACA recipient now caught in the quagmire of the current administration’s rescinding DACA. Because he was undocumented, the organization could not legally pay him for any of his work. And he could no longer afford to work without pay so left to start his own small business—the only means he had to support himself.
We last visited a year ago in his small, spare, downtown office, and he shared his pain of being caught—again—in the place of being unwelcomed, unwanted, legally allowed almost no space to be part of the society he’d lived in for much of his life. No place to contribute his abundant gifts, his passion for serving others, his commitment to bettering the life of those forced to live in the same shadows. My heart wept with his.
A few days ago, I learned that Brayath has been picked up by ICE and is now in immigration detention. In jail. Likely slated for deportation. It is 15 years since he came here; he no longer knows or identifies with his birth country of Honduras. I pray that my letter of support for him touches the heart of the immigration judge even a wee bit. I pray that Brayath holds onto hope amidst the uncertainties ahead. I pray that he receives a “stay of removal” and is not deported.
Please hold him in your prayers too—I sent a message that I would ask you so. And let us pray, live, and work that God may give sight to our blindness, that we may set free those we hold captive.
