It is 7 a.m. Sunday morning in Blue Ash, Ohio. Six hundred fifty people—old and young, mostly from faith communities, all holding protest pickets—are lining both sides of the road outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement administrative office. It is already humid and getting hot. Why are we even bothering? I wonder. Do these people really think any good will come of our protest against the deportation of Haitian immigrants? Is this just another exercise in liberal guilt? These questions are on my mind as I find my place of protest, off the street, on the grass. Police are watching, we’re told by our green-vested field marshals. We’re not allowed on the street.

I ask a young woman, not far from me, Catherine, from a nondenominational church, why she is doing this. “I don’t know, but I believe with God, all things are possible,” she says. “So I’m standing here praying for the people. I’m praying for the ICE officers. We’re praying for everyone involved.” 

This ICE office is about an hour and a half from Springfield, Ohio, home to as many as 15,000 once-thriving Haitians, whose families were supported by their own employment. In July, after 15 years, the Haitians’ protected refugee status was repealed under President Trump’s authority, recently affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. In an apparent effort both to avoid publicity and to send a chilling message to the refugee community, some of the Haitians received letters from ICE. The letters ordered them to report to this office in distant Blue Ash early this Sunday morning.

We are in an industrial setting with a few single-story offices and several production plants on the outskirts of this suburb just north of Cincinnati. Who would have figured that ICE would be out here? There is not even a sign on the building.

“WE’RE WATCHING,” says one of the protest signs, above an image of two large eyes. 

Letters were sent to refugees last week, too. Five hundred twenty-five protesters came here last Sunday, at the same hour, my wife, her sister (Springfield natives) and I included. The protests are timed to coincide with the refugees’ appointments. People on the line are excited to report that more protesters have come this week; the organizers counted 650 people there. 

After 15 minutes of standing in the sun, having seen only one refugee, I decide to walk up the line and find out why other people came. People on the protest line are hesitant to give me their names for fear of some form of retribution or harassment from ICE or anti-immigrant activists, so I settle for first names only. I show them my press pass from the Catholic Media Association, which seems to relax them. They know the church protects refugees. 

Eventually more Haitians come, one at a time, accompanied to the front door by advocates who drove from Springfield. The protesters break into applause and cheers of support as the Haitians and their advocates take the long, uphill walk around the building to the front door. A group of Springfield sympathizers, church leaders, clergy and lay, stand on the grass near the doors and offer Communion and prayer. Viaticum, I think, bread for the journey, for some of them, potentially into the hands of death in Haiti.

Inside they are fitted with ankle bracelets, GPS trackers, what some protesters are calling shackles. Then they are sent back 70 miles to Springfield to wait for deportation. We can’t see the devices from the protest line out by the street. But we’ve seen the photo of this bulky monitor strapped above the Sunday-best shoes of a Haitian woman from last week’s news. It really does look like a shackle. 

News quotes tell us this woman and the Haitians back in Springfield understand the shame-filled message of the ankle bracelets, like scarlet letters: “You are criminals.” They will have to wear them in front of their children and families. Following his ICE interview today, one braceleted man collapsed on the ground outside the building, sobbing. He had done nothing illegal.

I can only think, indignity. First it was the cat-eating trope, a falsehood repeated by our fellow Catholic and Cincinnatian Vice President JD Vance. Then it was July’s termination of protective status, which ended work permits and revoked driver’s licenses for people who supported themselves and were helping rebuild a local economy. Employers who valued them were required to dismiss them. Then it was this demand from ICE for the refugees to get up at least as early as 5 a.m. and somehow get to a distant ICE office without a driver’s license. Advocates had to drive them.

The lying, the secrecy, the racist comments from top political leaders all have motivated people to come out and protest this morning. But what good will we do? I still wonder.

I walk up the line, stopping to ask my question. A middle-aged man named Steve, one of the relatively few Black protesters, tells me: “I’ve got to believe that standing up, being seen, is gonna have some kind of effect. I’ll be honest, I’m not confident that that’s true. I’m standing here to try to show that people care, and I would love to see some result. I’m just not confident. Maybe knowing that people are on the side of fairness, of compassion, will have an impact going forward, even if it doesn’t happen today? Hopefully. Maybe.” He drove over here before 7 a.m. to take a chance. 

I move further up the line, to a spot across from the ICE entrance, careful not to step on the road. One volunteer told me the police told them if anyone steps on the street, they will shut the protest down. “We don’t want what happened in Minnesota,” she explained. 

Now behind a group of protesters, I ask if they can squeeze me in. We are watching a group of ministers praying across the lawn outside the ICE entrance. A clean, white cargo van, presumably ICE, is far behind us, parked at a corner with high visibility. People’s fears of being photographed by ICE seem reasonable. 

Denise, maybe in her 50s, talks on record when her friends will not. “Why am I here? I’m just heartbroken at the way our neighbors are being treated. So I’m out here making sure they know it’s not what I want. I think it’s important that they know that we’re watching them.”

A little further up the line is Jordan, who appears to be in his 20s. As we start to talk, pockets of applause erupt and grow. Another refugee is arriving and people are clapping and shouting in solidarity. “It’s important for me to show that we love our Haitian neighbors,” he says. Then a chant amplifies around us, drowning him out for a moment. “No hate! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here.”  He speaks of genocide and continues, “We need to do everything we can to stop this.”

I skipped choir to come out here this early morning. Now I come across a group of fellow parishioners from St. Robert Bellarmine, the Jesuit parish at Xavier University. They’ll be going to a later Mass today. Linda, from the 7 p.m. choir, doesn’t hesitate to speak: “I came to support these neighbors who are in such fear and uncertainty. I need my grandchildren to know that I did not stand by while all of this injustice was going on.” She acknowledges that this protest will do nothing to stop these refugees from being deported. “But this does make a difference. I hope it gives them encouragement and heart, and comfort that the whole country isn’t against them.” 

At 9 a.m. the protest is over. I walk close to the ICE building to find my friend Lou Ann, now a longtime Springfielder, who has been among those giving Communion. We were students together at Loyola back in New Orleans an aeon ago. She and her husband, Norm, have been steadfast supporters of Springfield’s Haitians, who have been navigating culture clashes for years.

Lou Ann and Norm know the refugees as decent people, full of faith, who are supporting loving families. “What use is it for us to be here?” I ask, yet again. I’m ready to hear more about strategy, but that’s not what’s on her mind. “I think part of our job now is to hang on to our humanity. And to not let things happen that are not observed, and maybe to save our own souls. I hope there’s some source of support, caring, honoring that comes through. Giving Communion felt particularly that way. It’s such a dignified thing to do. ‘You are a part of the body of Christ. We are connected.’”

I meet up with my wife and we pack our signs into the back of the car. Mine I made in a rush last week with a simple message: “God Is Merciful.” I hope and pray for mercy for the Haitians. It seems the only way around this legal trap. Then I pray that God will be merciful with me. How could I even ask why it is important to stand in solidarity?

John Feister is a freelance writer who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the co-author of four books with Richard Rohr, O.F.M., and co-wrote, with Charlene Smith, F.S.P.A., the award-winning biography Thea’s Song: the Life of Thea Bowman.