Episcopal Intercultural Network

09/23/2026

BREAKING🚨 Thirty-one children in one Maryland town now have a 62-year-old priest legally lined up to raise them the day ICE takes their parents.

Vidal Rivas has served at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Hyattsville for nearly two decades, and earlier this year the paperwork stopped being hypothetical. A single mother going through the asylum process was detained at an appointment with immigration authorities. Her son was 4. Her daughter was 18 months old. They moved in with Rivas and his wife.

Rivas' wife slept beside the children to soothe them. When she got sick, Rivas took over the childcare himself.

The mother spent four months in ICE detention. When she came back, her kids did not recognize her at first.

"We didn't expect that because she was doing things right," Rivas said.

Parents of 29 more children have since named him as their standby guardian. Two more families are arranging it now.

Under Maryland law, a parent can designate a standby guardian in case immigration authorities arrest them, and that person automatically becomes the child's legal guardian for six months, extendable by a judge.

Lawmakers passed it during Trump's first term specifically so detained parents' kids would not be dumped into foster care.

Nearly all the parents signing these papers are Salvadoran, like Rivas. Roughly 170,000 Salvadorans hold Temporary Protected Status, and in early September, hours before their designation was set to expire, DHS put out a short notice saying they would keep protection and work authorization for now, with an announcement on the program's future to come "at the appropriate time." Salvadorans in Hyattsville started losing jobs amid the confusion.

"Many people have left the church for other cities, and some have returned to their country," Rivas said. "People are in fear and become insecure."

Rivas grew up during El Salvador's civil war, when he says the military treated clergy who defended human rights as communists. He was detained, beaten and hospitalized.

If he takes in more children, he plans to open a bank account in the church's name to cover childcare costs. He calls it a moral obligation.

"I'm going to keep doing it as much as I can," he said.

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09/21/2026

As The Episcopal Church shifts its creation care resources to better support local, contextual efforts, applicants are invited to submit grant proposals for nature restoration, regenerative agriculture, climate advocacy, and environmental justice projects that will be evaluated and awarded by the church’s new eco-region networks. The deadline to apply online is Oct. 20.

Guided by this 81st General Convention resolution, the church began a new creation care approach in 2025 that centers the work and partnership of Episcopal dioceses and communities that share watersheds, ecosystems, or environmental concerns. These partners work together on nature-based solutions to slow climate change.
Since 2017, the church has awarded more than $1 million in grants for projects that seek to address climate change, environmental degradation, and the impacts of environmental racism. The new grant cycle offers awards up to $15,000 for projects that align with eco-region network priorities, demonstrate understanding of local issues and context, show potential for partnerships with organizations doing similar work, and include meaningful involvement and feedback from people who would benefit from the project.

“As we watch myriad climate concerns take hold across the lands and waters where Episcopalians dwell—from forest fires and water shortages to tornadoes, floods, and sea level rise—people of faith are committed to organizing ourselves in our regions to bring healing to the world God loves,” said the Rt. Rev. Cathleen Bascom, eco-region network coordinator. “By bestowing creation care grants this year through our eco-region networks, we seek to address specific environmental challenges and encourage projects informed by local wisdom that will build regional collaboration.”

Learn more and apply at: iam.ec/ccgrants

09/21/2026

09/21/2026

09/21/2026

St. Timothy Episcopal Church, local children’s author came together for ICE art installation in Chehalis:

St. Timothy Episcopal Church in Chehalis has provided more background and context for an art installation that was installed by members of its congregation and others on Sunday, Sept. 13.

In a Thursday news release, the church stated that 73 tombstones were erected to “commemorate those who died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention or during enforcement actions since Jan. 21, 2024.”

According to the church, the art installation is a collaboration between the congregation’s rector, the Rev. Kay Flores, Centralia-based nonprofit ROOTED in Lewis County, and Chehalis native and children’s book author Jess Hernandez.

Hernandez initially proposed the project, according to the news release.

“To me, evil begins when we stop seeing people as human beings and start seeing them as things,” Hernandez said in the release. “I wanted a visible, tangible way to remind folks that these were individuals with lives, stories and families.”

With funding provided by ROOTED, Hernandez and her family worked to hand-cut each tombstone over the course of a month, in addition to painting them and creating stencils with the names of each victim.

When she was looking for a location to place them, she “immediately thought of Rev. Kay (Flores) and St. Timothy.”

According to the news release, Flores was supportive of the project.

“In our baptismal covenant, we Episcopalians promise to seek and serve Christ in all others, loving our neighbors as ourselves, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being,” she stated in the release. “This project is a visible sign of the many people who have died as the result of violence and a broken system. The tombstones highlight the humanity of our immigrant neighbors, and remind us that we have promised, with God’s help, to work for a better world for them and for all of us.”

Members of the congregation painted names and biographical information on each tombstone.

“Just the sheer number of tombstones was incredibly sobering,” Hernandez said. “When I first proposed the project, I thought there were maybe 50 people. In the two months it took to coordinate and put everything together, the number kept rising. I even had to call Kay the week before it went up and have her make one more.”

According to the news release, Hernandez researched the deaths of each individual, and some stuck with her more than others, such as those who died of dementia while in ICE detention.

“We lost my mom from Parkinson’s dementia a couple of years ago,” Hernandez said in the release. “She was with people she loved, but she was still scared and disoriented sometimes. I can’t imagine how terrifying that would have been for those poor people.”

She added: “Too many of these deaths could have been prevented if these folks received timely medical attention. In a way, it reminds me of (Holocaust victim) Anne Frank. People think she was executed, but really she died of a preventable disease in a N**i prison.”

According to the church, the installation will remain at St. Timothy Episcopal Church until the end of September.

Hernandez hopes others express interest in hosting the installation after that.

“I’d love for other churches or community groups to have it up for a week, to have it travel outside our town,” Hernandez stated in the release. “These folks deserve to be remembered. And people deserve to know what happened to them.”

In initially announcing the art installation on social media, ROOTED in Lewis County called the display “Deaths at the Hands of ICE,” though that title was not included in the news release issued by the church on Thursday.

(Photo via St. Timothy Episcopal Church, Chehalis, WA, on Facebook)

09/17/2026