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Dear ORUCC,
We have so many wonderful opportunities for engagement around immigration justice this season that we thought it would be helpful to read about them all in one place. As we continue to “Welcome the Stranger,” we invite you into ways to learn more and take action through the activities listed below.
Welcome Quilts! Sunday, March 23 and March 30, 2025
We have the distinct honor of hosting the “Welcome Quilts” on their tour from the Tucson Historical Museum around UCC churches in Wisconsin! Stop by Friendship Hall and enjoy these beauties! Many of the fabric squares were drawn by children at Casa Alitas. The welcome quilts stand as a way of making a statement, through the arts, that all are welcome here. They are a symbol of beauty and of the world we hope to create.
This Sunday, March 23rd, after worship, you are invited to an open house to enjoy the quilts and draw a square for our quilters to transform into an ORUCC welcome quilt. The following Sunday, March 30, 12pm-2pm, people from other congregations and the community are invited to do the same.
Virtual Know Your Rights Training
Join the Wisconsin Council of Churches and Voces de la Frontera for another Know Your Rights Training in English on March 27th at 9:00am. We invite you to attend as many of these as you can. As allies, we need to know how to act in moments of crisis, and it takes training and repetition!
Led by Ruby De Leon and Voces de la Frontera staff. This training will be recorded. Ruby De Leon is an immigration attorney at Voces de la Frontera. Ruby has a passion for helping underserved communities and provides pro bono legal advice at the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinic each month at their only Spanish-serving location at the United Community Center. Ruby is also active within the legal community and is on the board for the Wisconsin Hispanic Lawyers Association.
To register go to
https://www.wichurches.org/events/kyrenglish
Dane Sanctuary Coalition wide meeting, April 3rd, 5:30pm, ZOOM
Matt Kendziera, the new Executive Director of Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice, will facilitate this meeting, and has invited Pastor Julia to lead us in prayer and a coalition conversation about where we are with sanctuary now. We will also hear from our partners at Centro and Voces de la Frontera, the guiding lights of our immigration justice activities.
Border Immersion Trip Sharing & Worship, Sunday, April 27, 2025
Our Border Immersion Trip worship service will be April 27th, the Sunday after Easter! Come and hear about the range of experiences and what in particular impacted the members of our border trip folks. Learn about La Casa de Misericordia, the welcome center on the Mexican side of the border, the water stations of Humane Borders in the Sonoran Desert, the crosses that honor and mark the spot where people died in the desert, and the many extraordinary speakers, music and food that graced our time in Arizona. Stay for a time of questions and answers after service.
This particular worship service at ORUCC coincides with a UCC State Wide ‘Immigration Justice’ Sunday worship, and precedes a week of prayer leading up to the always memorable Friday, May 2nd, Day Without Immigrants rally at the capitol.
A Day without Immigrants and Workers, Friday, May 2, 2025
Brace yourself for a happening! It’s time for the march and rally of the Day without Immigrants and Workers at the capitol! Join Pastor Julia, members of the ORUCC Immigration Justice team, and hundreds more as we march in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors around the capitol and then into the capitol rotunda. The program starts at Brittingham Park at 3pm, with the march to the capitol scheduled for 4:00pm, then the rally at and in the capitol at 4:30 pm.
The event is sponsored by Voces de la Frontera. Themes of the day: drivers licenses for all; accessible education (including in-state tuition for immigrant students); and no collaboration between ICE and Wisconsin Sheriffs.
Community Immigration Legal Clinic, March 2025 Compassion Offering
And a final reminder that the March 2025 Compassion Offering is the Community Immigration Legal Clinic (CILC). CILC provides pro bono representation for immigrants facing deportation, and is frequently the last line of defense for people who are in need of information and representation in our legal system.
Dane County Immigration Resources Handout (link)
The Immigration Justice Mission Team, knowing that many are looking for ways to effectively engage with the justice issues before us, have prepared a guide to those local immigration justice organizations doing the frontline work of addressing the needs of vulnerable immigrant and refugee communities. As you explore these organizations, you will notice some of the organization use social media to spread information, while also communicating behind the scenes in ways that protect their communities.
We invite you to (1) LEARN about the work of some organizations; (2) JOIN an organization; (3) SUBSCRIBE to their newsletter; (4) VOLUNTEER where the opportunity exists; and (5) DONATE when possible. Each website has a buttons tab for each of the above.
Know Your Rights Training and Volunteer Drivers Program, March 2 and March 9, 2025
We close by celebrating two actions in early March 2025 whose outcomes continue to reverberate. First, know that people from nine congregations and four advocacy organizations were present at the March 2 Know Your Rights training that we held at ORUCC. We passed out multiple copies of immigration-related resources and over 200 Know Your Rights cards. We know that these cards made their way to the Good Shepherd food pantry, into healthcare, grocery stores and restaurant settings, and into our local neighborhoods. The range of people in attendance speaks to the presence and outreach of members of our congregation.
The response to the call for drivers for the Volunteer Drivers Program was as eventful as that of the Know Your Rights training. Six members of our congregation joined others from ORUCC who provide essential rides to grateful immigrants and refugees as they fulfill their obligations, pass their security checks, and present their cases for asylum in court settings in Milwaukee, Waukegan, IL, and Chicago. The impact of finding a way to make their appointments lives on in the daily lives of each person on the receiving end of these rides.
Many blessings to you!
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