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Immigration attorney Ken Schmitt shared them last week in for people of faith in the St. Louis area that was sponsored by the Immigration Task Force of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, in connection with interfaith partners who work closely with the region’s immigrants.

Since 2016, the number of immigrants approved for asylum in the United States, many of them women from Latin American countries fleeing domestic violence, has plummeted to a 26% approval rate in the immigration courts from 48%. In the Kansas City immigration courts, which include cases in the St. Louis area, the story is even worse, with approval rates dropping to a mere 4.5% approval this year, from 36%, Schmitt said.

These are our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, said the Right Rev. Deon Johnson, the Missouri Episcopal bishop who gave the opening prayer for the webinar. Johnson is an immigrant from Barbados. His husband is a DREAMER, those children of immigrants brought to the United States as infants, whom the U.S. Supreme Court has protected from President Donald Trump’s attempts to deport them.

“Touch our ears, that we may hear anew the cries of those oppressed,� Johnson prayed. “Touch our hearts, that we might greet each stranger as a neighbor.�

In the entire St. Louis region, there is no heart bigger for social justice, nobody I have ever met who more sincerely sees her fellow man and woman as her neighbor, than Marie Kenyon. I first met Kenyon in 2015, shortly after former Archbishop Robert Carlson appointed the diminutive lawyer with a powerful voice as director of the Roman Catholic church’s , the group given the task of responding to the cries for racial equity in the region. Since then, Kenyon and many social justice warriors in the Catholic church have responded to those cries from local immigrants, particularly since Trump’s election, as they grew more afraid of being deported, of being cut off from food and medicine and services, of lacking an ability to support their families.

Kenyon helped organize the webinar series in which Schmitt presented his information last week, and because of it, she’s been placed on administrative leave by new Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski. She is a victim of the so-called “cancel culture� that conservatives claim is practiced on the left, but which people on both sides of the political spectrum have wielded as a force. Shortly after the immigration webinar took place, in which people of multiple faiths suggested that what is happening to immigrants should be a voting issue for people of faith, a conservative Catholic online publication called blasted the Immigration Task Force in the most Trumpian, partisan way, even though Schmitt and his fellow presenters mentioned neither Trump nor Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden by name. Instead, they shared the statistics and asked people of faith to think about their brothers and sisters.

“Give us the courage to stand up for justice,� they prayed.

ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ were sidelined after conservatives complained to church leaders. Because of an encouragement for people to vote on immigration issues, Rozanski worried that the webinar series would put the church’s nonprofit tax status at risk with the IRS, according to a statement the archdiocese put out.

“The archbishop and his leadership team were unaware of the content of the webinar series,� said archdiocese spokesman Peter Frangie. “The review process wasn’t followed.�

Kenyon was placed on administrative leave. The Immigration Task Force Facebook page was shut down. The webinar series was canceled. And now, Catholics in St. Louis who work in the area of social justice are worried about the future.

“I believe Marie’s forced leave by the archbishop sends a message of abandonment of our most vulnerable and retribution against those who have had the courage to act on their behalf,� says Trent Chambers, a west St. Louis County Catholic who has been active in various church social justice causes.

Schmitt said he was shocked when he heard that Kenyon had been placed on leave. A Catholic himself, he’s been plenty critical of the previous administration’s deportation policies, too. “Everybody was very careful about not saying who you should vote for,� Schmitt said, “but understanding what is happening right now in the immigration system.�

For the past several years, immigrants in the St. Louis region have depended on the Catholic Church and its various arms to hear their cries of oppression, and the church, through Kenyon and others, has heard them and responded. Frangie says the “archbishop remains fully committed to our immigrant brothers and sisters.�

Putting a tiny lawyer with a huge heart for justice back to work would help.