By Kristen Thomason
In what would be his final speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., told striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn. that, “The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around… But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.” He advised those who sought to be a light in the darkness to “develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.”
Drawing on the story of the Good Samaritan who helps a wounded stranger, King then encouraged his audience to stop asking, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” Instead, ask like the Samaritan, “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” Pastor Stephen Cook of Second Baptist Church asked himself this same question when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began detaining Afghan immigrants in Memphis.
Memphis is home to around 400 immigrants from Afghanistan, many of whom came as refugees under the Biden administration’s 2022 Family Reunification for Afghans program. Eager for a way to love their neighbors, Second Baptist opened its doors to the growing Christ Community Afghan Church.
“The Afghan congregation worshiped at Second Baptist for three years until being able to move into a space of their own last summer,” Cook said. “Their members continue to come to Second on Saturdays to use the Christian Family Life Center for fellowship and recreation.”
Last fall, the Trump administration deployed the National Guard, state troopers and ICE agents to Memphis as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force. Then, in November, the administration revoked protection for Afghan refugees and added them to the list of immigrants who could now be arrested, detained and possibly deported.
A week after the government’s announcement, ICE agents arrested and handcuffed a member of Christ Community as he walked his 5-year-old and 9-year-old sons to school. When immigration officials told him to call his wife to pick up their children from the local detention center, she too was arrested.
After a stay in a federal detention facility in Dilley, Texas, the family was able to return to Memphis. However, their ordeal is still not over. “They are required to wear GPS monitoring devices and report for check-ins with immigration officials every two weeks as they await a final hearing on their status, which may not happen for many months or longer,” Cook said.
In addition to being Hazara, an ethnic minority who are persecuted by the Taliban, the mother’s name is known to be on a list of Afghan converts to Christianity. “So, if she were sent back to Afghanistan, she would face certain death.” Latif Salar, pastor of Christ Community Afghan Church, told a local reporter, “She is crying and screaming all night, every night. They were just beginning to recover from the trauma of the Taliban. And now this.”
At the end of December, another church member was detained during a routine check-in with immigration officials and is being held in the ICE detention facility in Jena, La. A DHS judge ordered him to be deported to Brazil, the country that he traveled through on his way to the United States.
DHS argues that since he was able to pass through Brazil on a temporary visa, he must be able to return although he has no family there and does not speak the language. Last month, Cook, the Afghan church pastor in Memphis, one of their members and two congregational leaders from Second visited him at the ICE detention facility in Jena. His deportation is currently being appealed, but in the meantime, he remains in custody despite having broken no laws.
Those in Memphis’ Afghan community who’ve been detained by ICE are not criminals but rather victims caught in the Trump administration’s political and ideological dragnet. Their unjust treatment at the hands of ICE inspired Cook and Second Baptist to act. “Dr. King said, ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.’ Our Afghan neighbors’ lives matter. All our immigrant neighbors’ lives matter. To become silent now would be to take a step away from the life and flourishing of our beloved community.”
In a letter signed by members at Second Baptist, Cook called upon elected officials to speak out and stand up for the Afghan refugees, with local faith groups and businesses joining him in this effort.
The youth group at Second Baptist donated a portion of the proceeds from their annual pumpkin patch fundraiser to pay the court fees for an Afghan immigrant awaiting a deportation hearing. The congregation is also providing spiritual support to the members of Christ Community Afghan Church. “We are hosting a joint prayer and fellowship time where people from the Afghan church and Second Baptist will come together around tables for food, conversation and focused prayer.”
There is still much to be done, and good outcomes for the members of Christ Community Afghan Church in ICE custody are not guaranteed. But, inspired by Jesus’s illustration of the Good Samaritan and the prophetic words of Dr. King, the members of Second Baptist Church are shining like stars in the darkness over Memphis.