An interfaith group of men and women of the cloth led a Christmas week vigil at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center in Newark on Monday, asking ICE and its private contractor to respect the god-given value of every human being, regardless of immigration status.
“We believe that mass incarceration is not justice,” said the Rev. Chet Penza, a retired pastor with the United Methodist Church of Hackettstown. “And what it serves to do is deny the sacred worth of every individual.”
Penza was among clergymen and women from different faiths and parts of the state who prayed side-by-side beneath a hand-held cross, called together by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America 10 days after detainee Jean Wilson Brutus, 41, died at the detention center on Dec. 12, the day he arrived…