Dear SNL Members and Friends,

We are beginning our 10th year. We started back in 2017 when the newly inaugurated President declared the “Muslim ban,” following on his 2015 Presidential Campaign kick-off where he came down the escalator and declared that “Mexicans … were rapists.”

We started from scratch in July of 2017 — a few priests, a few sisters, a few immigrants, a few parish and church leaders. Three weeks later, in August of 2017, 120 people came to our inaugural conference at UD Mercy, “Catholic Response to Immigration,” including 20 sisters, 12 priests and 3 Auxiliary Bishops. There was a hunger to do something.

Soon, Amy Ketner told us about Circles of Support at St. Mary Student Parish in Ann Arbor, and a Steering Committee decided to build the network based in parishes and churches — because that is where the people are. We were not going to be a team of experts — but we were going to be a network of parish and church leaders.

The week before COVID, we held our first Youth Conference, when 12 Catholic high school campus ministers brought delegations of students to study Catholic Social Teaching — and civic engagement. And then during COVID, Sr. Martha de la Torre, SMR, began organizing circles of immigrant women leaders, “The Mujeres.”

Today, we are carrying a staff of 6 full-time community organizers. We are starting to organize in the Saginaw/Thumb region, into the Grand Rapids region … and into the Northern 21 counties of the Lower Peninsula. We are preparing for a large (500 people) Interfaith Pilgrimage to Lansing for a Welcoming Michigan on December 3, hoping to visit with the newly elected Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General — and key officials of the Senate and House of Representatives. At the same time many of our parish and church Circles of Support are caring for families in crisis — and accompanying anxious immigrants to their court and ICE hearings.

There is more going on — and valiant and generous work by immigrant leaders and circle leaders, by congregations of religious women and pastors, by youth and the rest of us. We are beginning to envision a better Michigan and a cessation of the cruelty we have seen in our state.

The Board of Directors set a goal of $150,000 for our Fall Fundraiser. Help us raise this goal!

Bill O’Brien
SNL Executive Director