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East Tennessee clergy cosign interfaith letter calling for end to county jail’s ICE enforcement agreement

September 16, 2026

[Episcopal News Service] East Tennessee Bishop Brian Cole and eight other Episcopal clergy in the Knoxville-based diocese signed a letter along with more than 100 interfaith leaders representing Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities in Knox County calling on officials to discontinue the county’s detention agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE, and to deny further expansion of ICE operations in the region. “We write together because our traditions, however distinct in practice and belief, rest on a shared moral foundation that to love God and to love our neighbor are not two commandments but one, and that a community which neglects the second has not, in truth, kept the first,” the letter says. About 30 of the letter’s signers gathered for a press conference on Sept. 16 in front of Roger D. Wilson Detention Facility in Knoxville to share personal testimonies about the impact the aggressive tactics used by local and federal enforcement agencies have had on immigrants in the community and their families. As mentioned in the letter, the clergy called for an end to immigrant deportations, especially of those who are legally in the United States. The Rev. RJ Powell, priest-in-charge at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Maryville, prioritizes advocating for immigrants’ rights and volunteered to write the letter on the interfaith leaders’ behalf. “From a theological perspective … this is a part of the fabric of who we are as Episcopalians,” Powell told Episcopal News Service after the press conference. “Looking at our baptismal vows, if we’re to ‘respect the dignity of every human being and seek justice and peace,’ there’s no exception to who is included in ‘every human being.’ It includes all people.” View this post on Instagram Knox County’s Sheriff’s Office began questioning inmates about immigration status in 2017.  A detention bed contract with ICE has been in effect since 2018. Since 2025, more than 5,000 people have been detained there on immigration matters, according to data compiled by Meghan Conley, a sociologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Knox County Sheriff Brent Gibson, who was sworn into office on Sept. 1, campaigned on working more closely with ICE. On Sept. 15, his office signed an agreement to expand its involvement with federal immigration enforcement under a task force model that would deputize police officers to question and arrest people on suspected immigration violations. At the state level, the Tennessee General Assembly this year passed several immigration laws “even though immigration law is strictly federal jurisdiction.” The interfaith letter says the laws “answer no genuine crisis of public safety,” but instead “deliberately construct a climate of fear whose logic is not the protection of this community but the racial targeting of a particular population of people within it, discrimination now given the force of law.” “The harm does not fall only on those without documentation. It falls on U.S. citizen children in mixed-status families, on patients who will now avoid seeking medical care, on victims of crime who will not call for help, on families who go without food because they are too afraid to go grocery shopping, all because institutions our own taxes pay for have been turned into instruments of federal surveillance,” the letter says. “When fear becomes the organizing principle of public life, every last one of us bears its cost.” Another concern that clergy have, according to Powell, is that they’ve “repeatedly” been denied access to make pastoral visits to people detained by ICE, though they’re able to visit inmates who are incarcerated for non-immigration-related reasons. “It’s happened to all of us – Episcopal, Catholic, Baptist, everyone,” Powell said. “This is why we need to be partners together to advocate for our immigrants and keep engaging in multifaith and ecumenical work on this issue.” The letter also calls on lawmakers to urge state officials to stop spreading “malicious falsehoods” about immigrants and for landlords, developers, business owners and institutions to refuse to house ICE offices and facilities. As an appeal to local law enforcement, the letter asks officers to “exercise every discretion the law still leaves you” and not arrest law-abiding immigrants. “Where the choice remains yours, choose mercy.” Nationwide, some 65,765 migrants and asylum-seekers are in ICE custody, according to the latest ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse Reports, an independent data-gathering and analysis center founded at Syracuse University in New York. The Episcopal Church offers several resources for Episcopalians engaged in immigration advocacy work, including its Protesting Faithfully toolkit. The resource offers “spiritual grounding and practical resources for faithful presence at protests and public demonstrations.” The church’s Immigration Action Toolkit shares resources from organizations that address migrants’ legal rights. –Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.