Time to Prey, Time to Pray

On Friday, March 28 in a suburb of Boston, six men approached a woman as she stood on the sidewalk. They were dressed all in black, most with their faces masked.

She was Rumeysa Ozturk. She holds a Turkish passport and a USA green card. She is in town pursuing a doctoral degree at Tuffs University. On this day, she was waiting for friends to pick her up for an evening dinner to break the fast of the Muslim celebration of Ramadan.

The video shows Rumeysa backing away as the men approached, then speaking no doubt to defend herself, then being escorted to a black SUV with total tinted windows, her hands behind her back in cuffs.

It was shocking.

American citizens like me had never seen anything like this. Why did such a task require street corner stealth rather than a court summons? Why did this require six men? Why were their faces covered with hoods?

No possible answers to these questions make any sense.

Except this: federal immigration officers have adopted the policies and practices of a dictator. And when these officers attempt to defend their actions to the public, the vibe and vocabulary convey a snarly meanness that has shocked the nation.

Turns out, that episode is being repeated around the country: mothers with children, scholars with books, and shoppers with groceries are being cornered, cuffed, and committed to camps without the constitutional rights guaranteed every person in the United States.

Last week, a mother was at the US immigration office for her scheduled appointment in pursuit of her naturalization process. With her were her two children, both citizens of the United States. All three were suddenly swept up in this nation-wide campaign to rid the country of what our President and his henchmen call “violent criminals”.

In this case, somebody was faced with this choice: shall I honor the citizenship of the two children and find a way to help their mother become a citizen? Or shall I ignore the citizenship of the two, note the undocumented status of the one, and throw all of them out of the country?

He chose the latter, revealing something dark and dirty about his own soul.

This week, a sleeping family was awakened by the sounds of a battering ram busting down their front door. A mother and her children were rushed outside into a rain drenched darkness. Around them was an ICE attack squad, 20 in all, dressed as if going to war against a foreign enemy, guns drawn.

It took hours before these ICE agents learned the truth: right address, wrong family, trauma be damned. They walked away, taking with them all the electronics, papers, and cash they could find. It was robbery in the first degree, conducted under the American flag and the Christian flag.

These stories shock me. The motives and meanness behind these stories stun me. The great mystery is this: how many hundreds of such episodes are occurring each day, episodes that never find their way to public notice, that remain buried in the midnight darkness.

I do not have language to express my outrage. I do not have actions sufficient to my anger. Like the “dangerous criminals” targeted by ICE agents in each of these attacks, I have no way to voice adequately my emotions.

There are millions of people like me. David Brooks is one of them. The conservative columnist for the New York Times put it this way, first in an interview, then in an article:

“Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness—on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause. Since January 20, as I have watched America behave vilely—toward our friends in Canada and Mexico, toward our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office—I’ve had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful.”

Yes. It is shameful. Yes. I am ashamed. Of my country. Of our elected leaders. Of the thousands of black-booted thugs posing as public safety professionals donning black hoods to cover their faces. Even of the millions of “Christians” giving their approval to the whole spectacle.

Perhaps they are ashamed. They should be. Their names and faces will one day be revealed. They will be called upon to give an account of their evil deeds done in darkness.

One day, this nightmare will be over, and these bullies will be named and shamed. Until then, O Lord. Help us all endure. As we lift this prayer, we look for Jesus. Some find him, dressed in black from head to toe, urging on the federal thugs, reciting scripture about wickedness and winning.

Others of us find him in white, hands cuffed behind his back, consoling the children and the scholars as they are all shoved into the back of a big black SUV. In the chaos, I hear the familiar cadence of the words our Lord gave us to pray, “Our Father in heaven …. deliver us from evil ….”

Dwight A. Moody