This morning a small group of us prayed outside the gates of Delaney Hall, the for-profit immigrant prison operated by GEO Group in our name. We gathered outside for a simple prayer service while the first group of families were forced to wait on an active driveway outside the gates for the chance to visit their loved ones detained in this 1,100 bed facility. This was the second week of the Let Us Pray Sunday morning prayer service outside Delaney Hall. Different faith traditions will be leading prayer each week. This week’s prayer was in the Christian Tradition and organized by Pax Christi NJ.

We began singing the song, Please Prepare Me, praying that we might be a sanctuary for the families and their detained loved ones.

We then listened to the word of God: Jeremiah 17: 5-11, Romans 12: 1-12, and Matthew 11:28-30. I was then honored to offer a brief reflection on the scripture readings, which is copied below. It was a beautiful experience of church with friends and strangers praying together that we may find refuge in God and be rooted in love.

Reflection by Susan Francois, CSJP – Delaney Hall (August 31, 2025)

Scripture: Jeremiah 17:5-11, Romans 12:1-2, Matthew 11:28-30

Chances are, right now, you have a piece of paper or a coin in your pocket with the words “In God We Trust” written on it.  Our currency has carried these words since President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law making “In God We Trust” our official national motto in 1956.  The context of this law, of course, was the Cold War. The inclusion of the motto on our nation’s money was seen as a response to the anti-religious stance of the Soviet Union.

We just heard proclaimed words from the prophet Jeremiah, in which he reminded his community to trust in God, not people and not money.  His preaching was in a different context. He was worried that the people were placing their trust in the wrong things and turning their hearts from God.  He wanted them to understand that actions have consequences.  He predicted (correctly as it turns out) that they would be exiled to Babylon.

I can’t help but wonder what he’d make of our context today.  Take the last line from the passage from Jeremiah, where he compares a partridge that broods but does not hatch to those who acquire wealth unjustly.  In the end, they are just fools. Unjust fools.

The building behind me is operated by GEO Corp under tax-payer funded 15-year $1 Billion contract.  GEO’s own press release announcing the deal in February proudly predicted that the “contract is expected to generate in excess of $60 million in annualized revenues for GEO in the first full year of operations.”  

And yet, even with all this profit, families with small children, pregnant mothers, and elderly relatives of persons detained behind these walls are not provided with a safe place to wait for the chance to see their loved ones before they are deported.  They are required to wait hours in the hot sun—and with this being Labor Day weekend, we know colder and wetter weather is around the corner—without shelter, without access to a bathroom even. I suspect that the prophet Jeremiah would have looked at this private-for-profit prison operation and declared that the GEO shareholders are earning their wealth unjustly.  

Let’s shift Jeremiah’s focus from those detaining our migrant brothers and sisters to their faithful loved ones who come to stand at the foot of these gates today.  Despite the odds, despite the difficulties, no doubt even in despair, they come each weekend in hope to spend a few moments with their loved ones.  “They are like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream.  It does not fear heat when it comes, its leaves stay green.”

The leaves that sustain them, I suspect, are rooted in love.  Love for their husband or wife, son or daughter, mother or father, brother, sister, or friend who are inside these walls.  Love for each other. Those of us who have been privileged to volunteer here these past few months have seen so many actions of kindness and love between strangers on this driveway. Volunteer to visitor. Visitor to visitor. Visitor to volunteer.  

By our very presence—as visitors, as volunteers—we are refusing to conform to this age of inhumanity where cruelty seems to be the point.  We trust in love, and my Christian tradition teaches that God is love.  Jesus, God-with-us, love incarnate, invites us in the passage we heard from Matthew’s Gospel to find sanctuary in his love, where we will find rest.

May we be love.  May we be loved.  May we be sanctuary for one another.  May we trust not in the unjust laws of men or the unjust pursuit of profit through human suffering, but in the love of God.

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