Category: Events

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2023 Pilgrimage to Heal Our Communities

October 26th – October 29th, 2023

The 2023 Pilgrimage to Heal Our Communities is an interfaith, spiritual pilgrimage to Bakersfield, Adelanto, Calexico, and San Diego as part of a multi-year effort to transform the six remaining immigrant detention centers into thriving communities with a priority on well-being and life-sustaining economies.   Our journey will inform California communities, elected officials and impacted families about a new opportunity to access funds from recent CA legislation HEAL – Healthy Economies Adapting to Last – that the Dignity Not Detention (DnD) Coalition won in 2023. HEAL divests in detention centers and invests in high road jobs and building a sustainable economy.

  • Pilgrimage itinerary
  • Full Pilgrimage invitation & logistics
  • Register here by September 15th to join us!
    • All costs covered along with stipend for those directly impacted.
    • $600 fee and travel to Pilgrimage covered by ally participants joining the Pilgrimage.

During this pilgrimage we will bear witness to the sacredness of the land, the ancestors, and the preventable harm and suffering caused by immigrant detention in California. We will gather in reflection, prayer and action at six immigrant detention centers,  other carceral institutions and meet with local organizers along the way. We will reflect on the impacts of settler colonialism on Indigenous peoples, the land, and the waters of California, and how this has paved the way for a carceral state that can and must be transformed.

The Pilgrimage is organized by the Interfaith Movement For Human Integrity, the Dignity Not Detention coalition, local community organizations, and the co-collaboration of each participant who joins us. We are inviting directly impacted community members, faith leaders, and organizational  partners to gather together to undertake this journey. 

Questions?  Contact Matthew: pilgrimage@im4humanintegrity.org

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Events

Spiritual Pilgrimage to Allensworth

Registration payment here:

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Events Resources

Border Experience Pilgrimage

Faith leaders from Northern and Southern California visited Calexico, US and Mexicali, Mexico April 26th-27th, 2023 in a multifaith Pilgrimage to learn and bear witness to struggles immigrants are facing at the U.S. – Mexico border in California, and to call for a better future. The delegation first traveled to Mexico to visit a shelter in Mexicali where many asylum seekers have been blocked from approaching the border and seeking asylum and protection. The following day, the group conducted a prayer service in front of Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, US, to bear witness to the suffering of those who are detained inside. The Pilgrimage ended with a visit to the Holtville cemetery of unnamed immigrants who have died in the desert in the region.

The Pilgrimage aimed to shed light on the injustices of the current asylum seeking process and immigrant detention. Fairness, freedom and opportunity should be at the core of our immigration system, but our current system isn’t set up to uphold these values. Instead, the Federal Government systematically blocks and deprives people of their liberty, separates them from their loved ones, and often puts lives at risk in ICE detention. The current system of detention didn’t exist just a few decades ago, and is inhumane and unnecessary: people can navigate immigration proceedings while living with their families or in the community without the trauma of immigration detention.

Learn more about the Imperial Valley, the harms of immigrant detention including at Imperial Regional Detention Facility, and the right to seek asylum with the Border Experience Pilgrimage Resource Guide.