07/16/2026
My latest Clergy View column for the Brainerd Dispatch
"Visiting Jesus in Detention"
By the Rev. Leslie Moughty | Pastor, First Congregational United Church of Christ, Brainerd
A few months ago, immigration raids and detention centers dominated the news. Today, the headlines have largely moved on. It would be easy to assume the situation has settled down. It hasn’t. Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to detain thousands of people across the country, many of whom have little or no access to pastoral care or other religious services.
Recently, the Minnesota Conference of the United Church of Christ, my denomination, joined the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and a Jesuit priest in a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security. The lawsuit argues that people being held in ICE detention are being denied access to clergy, preventing them from freely practicing their faith.
Some people become uncomfortable whenever faith and public policy intersect. Yet there is an important distinction between being political and being partisan. To be partisan is to align ourselves with a political party or candidate. To be political is to ask how our values shape the way we organize our life together. Jesus was never partisan.
He did, however, speak boldly about power, wealth, justice, the treatment of the poor, the welcome of strangers, and the misuse of religious and political authority. The gospel has public consequences because love of neighbor has public consequences.
One of Jesus’s most challenging teachings comes in Matthew 25, where he says, “I was in prison and you visited me.” He does not ask whether the prisoner deserved to be there. He simply identifies himself with the imprisoned. To care for them is to care for Christ.
Christians sometimes forget Jesus himself was arrested by the state. He was interrogated by government officials, held in custody, and executed by the Roman Empire as a political threat. His crucifixion was not merely a religious event; it was the public ex*****on of someone whose vision of God’s kingdom challenged the powers of his day.
When I hear Jesus say, “I was in prison and you visited me,” I cannot help but hear those words in our own context: “I was in ICE detention, and you visited me.” This does not answer every question about immigration policy. Nations have laws, and governments have responsibilities. Christians can disagree about how those laws should be written and enforced. I would hope that those of us who follow Jesus and take his words seriously would agree that no one should be denied the comfort of prayer, the ministry of a pastor, or the opportunity to practice their faith while in custody.
Pastoral care is not a reward for good behavior. It is an expression of God’s presence with people in their deepest moments of fear, grief, uncertainty and hope.
Christ is waiting for us in detention. We should never stop insisting on the right to walk through those doors.
One of Jesus’s most challenging teachings comes in Matthew 25, where he says, “I was in prison and you visited me.”
