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
“It’s shocking how many people don’t know what’s going on. So many well-meaning people that just don’t know. It’s in the dark, it’s in a vacuum.” This section is for pushing education into your congregation.
Immigration basics, for people who ask ‘why don’t they just get in line?’
The ‘just get in line’ handout. Print double-sided, walk an adult-ed group through the categories and the numerical caps.
The best single hub: how the system works, history, birthright citizenship, demographics, immigration and crime.
Use this for the civil-versus-criminal distinction, which almost no one in your pews understands and which changes the whole conversation.
A free written primer from your own neighbors on Cherokee Street: green cards, visas, DACA, asylum, refugee status, TPS, and who USCIS, DHS, ICE and CBP actually are.
Pull the Missouri profile for local numbers.
Detention and enforcement, with the numbers
Detention statistics change monthly. Always re-pull them on the day you print, and label them with a date.
The primer, with current national figures. As of the page we read: 70,766 people in detention on Feb 2, 2026; 310,181 detained in FY2025; 91% held in privately operated facilities.
The current analysis of how detention is growing, in English and Spanish. There is a companion 2026 piece on IGSA expansion — the exact contract type our four Missouri county jails use.
How many people face deportation without a lawyer, by state, updated monthly. This is the statistic that moves congregations.
Downloadable annual fact sheets. Get the Missouri one.
Backlog and filings data. Quick facts are free; full tools are subscription — do not promise congregants free access to everything.
As of June 30, 2025: 737 agencies across 40 states. Read this before any conversation about local police cooperation.
Adult education you can actually run
The real gap. There is no single ecumenical, denominationally neutral, current adult formation curriculum on immigration. UMC’s Called to Journey and CBF’s video guide come closest. If this Collective builds one original thing, this is it.
Videos at vimeo.com/cbfvideo. Free, bilingual, current, and not narrowly denominational.
The closest thing to a drop-in Bible study on immigration, and it travels well across denominations.
Free, no registration. Explicitly evangelical framing — excellent for a Christian congregation, needs translating for an interfaith room.
February 2026. Solid study guide.
Myth-countering talking points. Prep for the hard coffee-hour conversation.
Children and youth — asked for by name in this Collective
HIAS’s curated children’s booklist is the strongest single find in this section: 27 titles organized by grade band. Confirm spellings against a library catalog before printing — the PDF has a few typos.
Preschool–K: Welcome (Barroux) · Lilah Tov Good Night (Ben Gundersheimer) · Gina From Siberia (Bernstein & Glynn). Grades 1–3: Gittel’s Journey (Leséa Newman) · Rosie and Warda and the Big Tent (Liss-Levinson) · Emma’s Poem (Linda Glaser) · Rebecca and Ana (Dembar Greene) · Four Feet, Two Sandals (Karen Lynn Williams) · The Journey (Francesca Sanna) · Lost and Found Cat (Kuntz & Shrodes) · Mama’s Nightingale (Edwidge Danticat). Grades 4–5: Dia’s Story Cloth · Drita, My Homegirl · Refugee (Alan Gratz) · When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Judith Kerr). Grades 6–8: Cry of the Giraffe · Inside Out & Back Again (Thanhhà Lại) · A Long Walk to Water (Linda Sue Park) · The Only Road (Alexandra Diaz) · The Red Pencil. Grades 9–12: The Arrival (Shaun Tan, wordless graphic novel) · Children of War · Escape from Aleppo · The Good Braider · Nujeen · Outcasts United · Over Under Sideways Down.
Pick three or four by age band for the religious school library; read one aloud in a children’s sermon.
Ten titles, ideal for a congregational book group.
Two complete free curricula, four sessions each plus a family night, with a built-in service project.
Free classroom lessons. Note: this section is archived and no longer updated — use the archive URLs.
Written for schools, transfers directly to religious school teachers.
A congregation-written handout, on the RA resource page.
Films you can legally screen for free
Register your congregation with the POV Community Network and you can legally host a public screening of 60+ documentaries at no cost, with a free discussion guide. This is the single best-value thing in this section for fall programming.
Register once, then screen from the library with ready-made guides.
Pedro, a blind undocumented immigrant, pursuing a social work degree. Immigration, disability and mental health. Spanish audio description and captions.
Two young women in a Texas border town; friendship and joy as resistance. Discussion guide in English and Spanish.
A queer-focused shelter for asylum seekers in Tijuana. Short runtime makes it ideal for a single adult-ed hour.
Hosted by Maria Hinojosa. Assign an episode as pre-work before a discussion session.
Telling stories without doing harm
“The prophets didn’t quote statistics, they told stories.” That instinct is right, and it carries real risk when the storyteller is undocumented. Read the consent and safety material before you invite someone to testify from your pulpit.
Read this first. Five practical tips.
The closest thing to a consent-and-safety protocol for sharing an undocumented person’s story without exposing them.
The storyteller’s own wellbeing — resilience for undocumented storytellers.
Hand these to a congregant before a reporter shows up at your vigil.
Framing and narrative research, including the ‘Move Them or Lose Them’ series. Built for journalists and screenwriters, so the ethics transfer cleanly but the vocabulary needs translating for a faith audience.
Get a trainer or a speaker into your building
Your best local option. They do Know Your Rights presentations and power-of-attorney workshops. Call 314-995-6995 or use the request form. Cost is not published — ask.
Nine named speakers including Matthew Soerens. One to two weeks’ lead time; fees not published.
For interfaith and Muslim-tradition speakers.
One-hour live online training, 8–9pm ET. Confirmed dates: Aug 19, Sept 16, Oct 21, Nov 18, Dec 16, 2026. Appears free — confirm at lobby@fcnl.org.