Walking into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Delaney Hall detention facility in New Jersey, Rev. Robin Tanner quickly noticed that the windows were blocked off. Tanner, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Summit, N.J., pointed out one issue for people inside: “For many people in their faith tradition, [prayer] is a daily act,” she said. Muslims are instructed to face the city of Mecca during their five daily prayers, and a Muslim detainee wouldn’t have any way to know which direction to pray.
But for months, Amadou, a father and truck driver from Burkina Faso, whose full name Sojourners is withholding for his safety, struggled to convince guards to let him pray with other detainees at all. In Islam, Friday prayers, or salat al-Jumu’ah, are not only obligatory for every nondisabled man but are required to be performed in congregation. Amadou was detained 16 months ago and transferred to New Jersey last year. In Delaney Hall, it took four months for Amadou and other Muslim detainees to gain access to occasional gatherings for Friday prayer, finally prevailing in time for Ramadan.
ICE has a stated duty to provide spiritual care for those in its custody. According to ICE manuals, detainees must be provided with “regular opportunities to participate in practices of their religious faiths, limited only by a documented threat to the safety of persons involved in such activity itself or disruption of order in the facility.” As ICE continues to fail even its own guidance, a host of faith leaders have emerged to chip away at the agency’s spiritual blockade of those in its custody.
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