On Monday, an ICE agent shot and killed Johan Sebastián, a 25-year-old husband and father in Biddeford, Maine. This cruel and reckless act of violence marks the 11th murder by federal agents since the Trump administration returned to office and comes less than a week after ICE’s murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, in Houston, Texas.
In response, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, said:
“Baruch Dayan HaEmet. We mourn the loss of Johan Sebastián and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. We pray for their families and loved ones. We are grieving, we are furious, and we will not allow their deaths to be treated as routine or inevitable.
“Every single one of us and every single one of our neighbors, everywhere around the country, deserves to be safe as we drive to work, provide for our families, and go about our days. We know that these incidents in Texas and Maine are not isolated tragedies. They are part of a growing pattern of a violent ICE mass detention and deportation machine that is putting all of our lives at risk and putting all of our communities in danger. ICE is a danger to everyone who makes their home in this country, and particularly to Black and brown residents who are racially profiled and targeted. Let’s be clear: This horrific destruction of families and communities is what the congressional majority spent billions of dollars to fund.
“Right now, Jews are in the midst of the Three Weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av, a period when we mourn collective catastrophes and confront the harm human beings are capable of doing to one another. Our tradition teaches that the Second Temple fell because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred. We are seeing the destructive effects of baseless hatred right now, and we refuse to let the violence of this deportation machine become just another thing we learn to live with. This season calls us not only to grieve, but to act.
“We demand justice and accountability for these senseless killings at the hands of ICE agents, as well as a full and transparent accounting of what happened. We demand not one more penny be allocated to ICE.
“Even as we grieve, we see neighbors coming together to support each other and refusing to be divided by the administration’s cynical and racist tactics. T’ruah joins clergy, Jewish leaders, and other concerned Jews who are organizing protests, vigils, support networks, and more, because our Jewish values insist on the inherent dignity of each and every one of us.
“May their memories be for a blessing.”
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About T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights brings the Torah’s ideals of human dignity, equality, and justice to life by empowering our network of over 2,300 rabbis and cantors to be moral voices and to lead Jewish communities in advancing democracy and human rights for all people in the United States, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories.