WASHINGTON (RNS) — Less than a day after President Donald Trump defended his mass deportation campaign during his State of the Union address, more than a thousand United Methodists and their allies rallied outside the U.S. Capitol, calling on Congress to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

“We demand that ICE and CBP be dismantled,” said retired United Methodist Bishop Minerva Garza Carcaño at the rally. “We demand that ICE and CBP be defunded.”

That demand was underscored by speaker Rep. Shri Thanedar, who last month introduced the Abolish ICE Act. In addition to Thanedar, who is Hindu and an immigrant from India, Democratic Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon and Delia Ramirez both spoke, and the two drew on Christian rhetoric, with Scanlon telling attendees to be “salt and light” and Ramirez quoting from St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer for peace.

“When universities, and legacy media and law firms and corporations have failed to meet the moment, our faith communities have stepped up,” said Scanlon.

Ramirez, a United Methodist, said, “God is calling us for such a time as this — to stand up for justice.” She noted that she is the lead sponsor of legislation that would ban offensive-weapons transfers to Israel and said, “What many don’t know is that that call for that work came when I went with the United Methodist Church 20 years ago to Palestine.”

The group, largely United Methodists from the East Coast, though ecumenical partners spoke from the stage, gathered for a worship service, march and outdoor rally before splitting off to speak with their congressional representatives.

Addressing Trump from onstage at the rally, Carcaño said: “Shame on you for scapegoating immigrants in this country, blaming them for every single brokenness we have. Immigrants are essential workers in this country,” she said. “They are members of our congregations. They are our friends. Above all, they are beloved by God.”

The day of action, titled “Faithful Resistance,” was planned months ago, and organizers settled on their schedule before the date for the State of the Union was announced. For Carcaño, that was providential. “God is with us. We’ve got to keep listening to God and standing up for God’s justice.”

During a worship service before the rally at Capitol Hill United Methodist Church, preachers connected current immigration policies to longer histories of racial injustice — some perpetuated by Christians.

“We have been taught that some are more entitled to land than others, that some are apparently entitled to freedom, while others can only exist in a subservient posture,” preached Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, “that God has ordained a hierarchical system of wealth and worth.”

The church was packed to standing room only, with volunteers outside the doors warning newcomers away due to fire capacity. Organizers told RNS they counted 1,300 people at the worship services, including the overflow sites of Ebenezer United Methodist Church, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Building, which also filled up completely, they said.

“United Methodists, we come out,” said attendee the Rev. Kelly Grimes, pastor of Glenmont United Methodist Church, where she said 17 nations are represented. The congregation experienced a false report of an ICE sighting near its campus that disrupted the congregation about a year ago, but since then immigrant congregants have returned to worship, despite fear, Grimes said.

The immigrants in her congregation “are a blessing to the United States of America,” Grimes told RNS. “Everyone has a right to be on this land.”

At the worship service, Easterling preached, “When immigration systems are designed to protect wealth rather than human dignity, that is systemic, structural sin.”

“When visas flow easily for investors and tourists, but not for farmworkers, domestic workers and refugees, we are showing who we believe really matters,” she continued.

Instead of that hierarchy, Easterling said, “the earth is the Lord’s,” and “to follow Jesus is to resist anything that destroys families and fractures communities.”

Easterling ended her sermon by denouncing nationalism: “You want to have the unmitigated gall to say God bless America, then at least get it right and understand you then got to say God bless Chile and Argentina … ”

As she continued her litany of pan-American countries, in an echo of Bad Bunny’s recent Super Bowl performance, raucous applause drowned out the names.

But despite the energy among attendees, there was a palpable sense that the current moment was serious and dire. During the worship service and rally, several speakers made a point to say the names of people who have been killed by immigration enforcement agents or while in ICE’s custody.

At the rally, the Rev. Noel Andersen, the national field director for Church World Service, one of several faith-based refugee resettlement organizations, said of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, “It is ever more clear that these policies are part of the administration’s wider xenophobic and white supremacist agenda” and that ICE was acting like “secret police.” Church World Service has warned about a recent administration memo that could lead to the arrest and detention of tens of thousands of refugees.

“As a father of two myself, it’s terrifying to see parents ripped from their children,” said Andersen, speaking about a breastfeeding mother, in the U.S. as a legal refugee from Myanmar, separated from her 5-month-old baby and held in detention for over a week before a court ordered that she be released.

The Rev. Leslie Copeland-Tune, chief operating officer for the National Council of Churches, invoked the words of the biblical Prophet Habakkuk, who asked, “Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen?”

But Copeland-Tune said the dire moment calls for action. “When evil is all around us, when the enemy comes in like a flood, we must stand flat-footed, 10 toes down, and declare that we will not rest, we will not stop, we will not give up, we will not cower or back down until freedom comes,” she said.

The Rev. Carlos Malavé, president of the Latino Christian National Network, said that as Latino communities and other communities of color are feeling “fear and stress,” concerns about immigration are spreading.

In his recent visit to Minneapolis, he recalled hearing from conservative, evangelical and Pentecostal pastors who told him they were having a change of heart about Trump, saying “supporting that man is the worst decision I ever made.”

“They’re coming around. Let us not lose hope of the church,” Malavé said.

Iliana Lopez Mantos and her husband, the Rev. Gabe Lopez, said they are relying on the faith of their immigrant parents right now. Iliana said her mother “always made sure that people were OK before her, and I think that’s what we’re being taught too.”

Attendee Bill Howell, a member of Edgehill United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, told RNS that persistence could create change. 

He was part of a group of protesters who in April disrupted Tennessee legislative hearings on a bill to deny immigrant children the right to education with tactics that included singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and saying the Lord’s Prayer. The bill was not passed.

That kind of protest, Howell said, “has been and will continue to be, and may be the only thing, that really can bring about change.” He said, “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment.”