clergy & faith leaderS’
toolbox for immigrant justice
- Start here
- Sacred Texts & Reflection
- Your Tradition
- Protect & Prepare
- Teach & Learn
- Advocate & Organize
- Vote & Civic Engagement
- St. Louis & Missouri
- Build This Together
- Before you rely on this
This is the first question almost every clergy person asks, and it deserves a written answer before it is an emergency: what happens if immigration agents come to my building, or to the door of someone in my congregation? Decide it with your board now. Do not decide it in the moment.
Start here — and this one is Missouri-specific
The ACLU of Missouri’s “Guidance for Places of Worship: Immigration Enforcement” is the single most useful download on this website. It is authoritative, written for Missouri, and it answers the questions clergy actually ask. In summary, in its own words: places of worship “are not required and cannot be forced to enforce immigration laws.” Officials may enter public areas without a warrant. Private areas require a judicial warrant signed by a federal judge, presented in hard copy — “a deportation order or arrest order is not the same as a judicial warrant and does not permit an agent to enter.” It recommends marking public and private space with signage. And it is honest about sanctuary: “the concept of ‘sanctuary’ in a place of worship is not recognized by federal law.” A declaration gives no legal protection.
Print one for every person on your staff and board, and one for the office wall.
Six steps, updated January 2026. Also available in Mandarin. There are companion guides for schools and health centers.
Places of worship, schools, health centers, workplaces, protest rights, airports.
The religious-liberty argument for houses of worship, from the Law, Rights and Religion Project.
Current national guidance. Spanish version available.
A written plan for your building
The protocol. Adopt it, adapt it, put it in a binder at the front desk.
The governance document to take to your board for a vote.
Script your greeters, ushers, office volunteers and preschool staff. They are who agents will talk to first.
On your doors this week.
Printable window and door signage.
A second framework, useful to read alongside CBF’s.
What to hand to the people in your pews
ILRC Red Cards are free, and they exist in 59 languages. The page says it plainly: “The Red Cards are FREE, there is no FEE!” They are card-sized — a person hands one to an agent instead of speaking. Order a box, put them in the vestibule and the pew racks, and hand them to anyone who asks. If you do one thing from this page, do this.
Free to nonprofit and immigrant-serving organizations. Print-your-own PDFs for all 59 languages are on the same page.
The actual order form. Ashrei or your congregation can order in bulk.
Run a preparedness workshop after services: childcare designation, document storage, who to call. Note the guardianship sections are California-specific — pair it with Missouri legal guidance from MICA.
The most multilingual single flyer set we found. Print it in the languages your neighborhood actually speaks.
Longer-form booklets for home raids; car-stop flyers in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole.
The one link to give someone who needs to self-serve: legal help, detention, TPS, DACA, mental health, benefits, employment.
Thirteen dated guides. The detention and immigration-court ones are what pastoral care actually needs.
Notario fraud. Clergy are often the first person asked, and the first person able to prevent it.
Rapid response, and the model down the street
STL Rapid Response Coalition — 314-370-7080, staffed 7am–7pm, seven days a week. This is the number to call when someone is detained, and the number to put on every wallet card, bulletin board and refrigerator in your congregation. The hotline is volunteer-led and administratively housed by the Ashrei Foundation. When you call, an automated greeting offers two options. Press 1 to report suspected immigration enforcement activity you have witnessed — this transfers you to a separate community group that handles sighting reports and verification. Press 2 to reach a trained bilingual English/Spanish operator for help with a detention. Operators then activate whichever volunteers a family actually needs — attorneys, interpreters, locators, telecom navigators. Other languages are covered through a telephonic interpretation service. The line also receives text messages, which matters for anyone who cannot safely speak aloud. Give people the hours along with the number, so a call at midnight becomes a message rather than a hang-up. stlrapidresponse.org/hotline
A neighborhood alert system a congregation can adopt for the price of a box of whistles. Three short blasts: ICE present. Three long blasts: ICE detaining someone. To get whistles, contact Dean Kathie at 314.255.1640.
Record everything; turn off biometric phone unlock; do not touch, block or threaten agents; do not consent to warrantless searches; do not lie to federal officials; do not resist even an apparently unlawful arrest. Not a substitute for legal advice.
The theological rationale, if you want to bring this to your own board.
April 2026. For congregants who witness enforcement.
If no trainer is available, a lay leader can present these slides as-is. Free.
Older (2020-era) but still the most relevant item in IIC’s toolkit archive.
Relevant to anyone joining a public vigil. English and Spanish.