By Sherri Kimmel
In Lancaster County, Pa., where the Amish still plow fields with teams of horses three abreast, a paved bike path unfurls tranquilly along the wide Susquehanna River. Look to your right, and you’ll see the notorious Three Mile Island nuclear reactor perched mid river. A few miles ahead, you’ll pedal straight through verdant green cornstalks, their spiky tassels backlit by the sun.
Since 2022, bikers and walkers have enjoyed this 14.2-mile wooded thoroughfare, but a new sign alongside the official trailhead marker creates a jarring start to a ride that had been so calming. “Lancaster is not a sanctuary county” the blue-and-white sign declares.
Mention this to Matt Johnson, a community organizer at Church World Service (CWS) Lancaster, and he knowingly nods and says, “Conoy Township.”
In contrast, Lancaster city was dubbed America’s refugee capital in a 2017 BBC News report that noted it welcomed 20 times more refugees per capita than the rest of the US. Nine years later, the bike path marker is a sign of the times.
Despite cuts in federal funding and immigration restrictions imposed during the second Trump administration, CWS Lancaster and its central Pennsylvania partner office, CWS Harrisburg, still offer refugee support, even though their focus has shifted from resettlement to legal support and integration services for people admitted before the early 2025 restrictions.
Rise Up for Refuge
Due to budget-driven staff reductions, volunteer advocacy is even more critical than ever. To mobilize and strengthen faith and community involvement, CWS launched Rise Up for Refuge earlier this year.
As part of this national campaign, the Harrisburg and Lancaster offices sponsored a daylong Rise Up conference at Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren. The church’s central location was just one factor in its selection, according to Johnson.
“I’ve spoken at this church many times, and I’m always amazed at how well informed and committed this congregation is. I never have to start at square one when explaining the refugee situation,” he said. Church of the Brethren traditionally are among the strongest faith community advocates due to their biblically based stance of welcoming the stranger, he added.
A resolution adopted at Annual Conference in July strengthens that commitment. “Walking Together: Immigration, Peacemaking, Conscience, and Supporting our Neighbors” reiterates that “care for immigrants and refugees is an essential part of the Christian and Church of the Brethren ethic of service and peacemaking.”
At the Rise Up conference in June, local volunteers heard updates on increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement and detentions, re-vetting and re-interviewing of legal immigrants, suspension of green card processing, threats to temporary protective status (TPS), work authorization and birthright citizenship, and restrictions on public benefits.
The 70 participants chose breakout sessions on a variety of topics. Naomi Kraenberg, pastor of the Elizabethtown Church, co-led a session exploring how faith can ground and inspire effective immigration advocacy. Other sessions covered:
- How to create mutual-aid networks to help with loss of benefits and work authorization.
- Updates and forecasts on immigration policy changes federally, statewide, and locally.
- How to secure meetings with public officials and craft compelling talking points to influence them.
- 287(g) agreements that enable collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement—and what communities can do to resist them.
- Faith-rooted direct-action tactics used in Minneapolis during the Operation Metro Surge this spring, which resulted in 4,000 arrests by ICE agents.
“Rise Up for Refuge reminded me that I am not alone, that I know a whole host of kind, smart, interesting people and that the Trump administration is making no friends in the sane world of humans,” said participant Katie Daniels.
Daniels, a volunteer for CWS Harrisburg, learned about “funding cuts, indiscriminate ICE crackdowns, false advertising to coerce partnership with borough and township police departments, and the narrowing of the definition of eligible immigrants to white people from South Africa. The current administration should take its clues from the hard-working, creative, and doggedly persistent people I met at the conference and with whom I work. We’re fighting back.”
To Johnson, the conference was “highly relevant and successful in the current climate around immigration, TPS, and refugee support.” Fired-up volunteers like Daniels will be further briefed in the coming months, he said, “to sustain momentum and to continue educating and mobilizing churches and community members around immigrant and refugee support.”
For more information on the Rise Up for Refuge campaign
— Sherri Kimmel is a freelance writer and editor who serves on the leadership team at Mechanicsburg (Pa.) Church of the Brethren.
Photo by Rachel Helwig
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