Session Endorses Statement on Immigration Enforcement

At its December 2025 Session meeting, WPC’s Reparative Justice Group (under the umbrella of the Mission and Outreach Team) moved that the Session endorse the Statement on Immigration Enforcement, a document composed by the Love Thy Neighbor Working Group at the Charlottesville Friends Meeting. The statement highlights the fundamental moral imperative to treat all human beings with fairness and humanity. The goal is to mobilize members of faith communities, their leaders, and other people of conscience to register opposition to our government’s inhumane immigration enforcement policies, and to encourage faith communities to discuss and endorse the statement. The Friends Meeting plans to submit the list of signatories to the Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle Board of Supervisors to ask for endorsement of the key elements of the statement. Westminster’s Session voted to endorse and sign the statement, the text of which is included below. You are encouraged to reflect on it. If you feel moved to sign it (as an individual), use this link and share it with others.

Love Thy Neighbor / Statement on Immigration Enforcement

We, as members of faith communities and people of conscience, are guided by moral values to support the family and to show compassion to the stranger.

We condemn the enforcement of policies that shatter immigrant families, when neither parents nor children have been charged with violent crimes.

We condemn detention without informing family members of the whereabouts of their loved ones or permitting communication and visitation.

We call upon our elected leaders and fellow citizens to ensure that immigrant families remain together and are treated with fairness and humanity.