Every Monday morning outside the Philadelphia ICE office, people gather to sing, pray, protest and call for compassion. The Monday Interfaith Vigil was convened last October by state Sen. Art Haywood. Rain, snow, cold, heat — we haven’t missed a week. Calling ICE to stop disappearing our neighbors is that important.

A recent Suffolk University/Philadelphia Inquirer poll showed that nearly 60% of Philadelphians want our city to retain its sanctuary policies even if that means losing federal funding. We’re not surprised. For all history’s inconsistencies, concern for immigrants and refugees is in the city’s DNA. We were doing it before the nation was born.

In November 1755, more than 450 people of French ancestry arrived on the Delaware River. They were among more than 6,000 involuntarily removed from their homes in Nova Scotia and dispersed throughout British colonies. Of those who landed in Pennsylvania, roughly half ended up dying of illness. Some were sent to towns as far away as Lancaster. Children were bound into servitude.

Those in Philadelphia had a comparably easier time. After quarantining them on board ships, the State Assembly housed them on Province Island (currently part of Philadelphia International Airport) and gave them enough food to survive. Those not sent into surrounding counties moved into small houses built on Pine Street through the fundraising efforts of Quaker Anthony Benezet.

Quaker activists organized funds to get them a lawyer. The care they received was such that they told the State Assembly, “Blessed be God that it was our lot to be sent to Pennsylvania, where our wants have been relieved, and we have, in every respect, been treated with Christian benevolence and charity.”

Just as remarkably in a time of deep anti-Catholicism, the exiles found a spiritual home at St. Joseph’s Church, where Father Robert Harding joined efforts on their behalf. While the deputy governor wrung his hands about French Catholics possibly joining Irish and German Catholics to cause trouble, the exiles received care made possible by interfaith organizing.

Our Monday vigils call on this same spirit of care. We condemn a public policy of casual cruelty.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, “Dying in Detention,” 52 people died in ICE custody in the first 500 days of Trump’s second term. That doesn’t count people who died during militarized surges in our cities or from trauma and inadequate care after being released from custody.

This is unconscionable. Our message to the administration is: Stop brutalizing our neighbors.

We are not alone in this. Every Monday we are greeted by honks of solidarity from people driving by. Many of them pump their fists and shout words of encouragement. They, too, know Philly history in their bones.

As the city celebrated the semiquincentennial, we hosted an event at historic Christ Church to call the nation to its better angels. We heard voices past and present about the nation’s highest ideals and the impact when we fall short. We lamented lives lost. We marched to the ICE office and tied a red cord across the driveway — a symbol of the blood they’ve shed, but also of the flag that can and should unify us.

We summon the spirit of humane concern that has been part of the city’s lifeblood from the beginning. We call on all people of conscience to join us in work that supports this interfaith legacy, protects those at risk, and strengthens local communities and economies. We call upon neighbors to reject the myth that immigrants endanger the nation and its finances. Studies show that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born here and that, between 1994 and 2023, immigrants paid $14.5 trillion more in local, state and national taxes than they received in benefits. Finally, we call on ICE to recognize immigrants’ humanity and to join us on the right side of history.

Kipp Gilmore-Clough is senior pastor at Chestnut Hill United Church and teaches Religious Studies courses at Rutgers University - Camden.