As an interfaith organization, CLUE’s work often finds people through divine guidance in support of their calling. Pastor Tanya Lopez, Senior Pastor of Downey Memorial Christian Church connected with CLUE in her search for professional development that aligned with her sense of calling as a pastor.
About a year and a half ago, just a few months before President Trump’s 2025 inauguration she signed up for CLUE webinars focused on “how churches could be better prepared for walking with immigrant and other vulnerable populations.” From there she subscribed to their newsletter and found a community of faith leaders whose work was in alignment with her own ministry and a sense of purpose as a pastor to “embody Christ’s love in the world; not just preaching it, but living it.” CLUE welcomed Pastor Tanya’s involvement as a bilingual leader, inviting her to lead the invocation, an opening prayer, for the 2025 May Day March, an intersectional march for justice for worker rights, which are also immigrant rights.
Shortly afterwards, in June of 2025, Pastor Tanya responded to a disturbance in her church’s parking lot, only to witness a man being detained by masked ICE agents. She recalled how “CLUE came … immediately when they heard that it happened…we had the press conference, CLUE colleagues and organizers stood with me, and so that just…reaffirmed that we’re in this work together.”
Seeing the power of uniting together, Pastor Tanya was emboldened to face the urgency of the work of immigrant justice with CLUE because,
They’re doing the things right, they give you the capacity to engage in the work of truly being in solidarity, walking with families, doing things like accompaniment to ice check-ins or to their court hearings, and…even what does it look like to accompany families beyond that, because we know that families that are experiencing the impact of immigration enforcement even after they’ve maybe made it through the process There’s still so many hurdles, right?
For Pastor Tanya, CLUE is a model for what a network of care looks like across cities, counties, and faith traditions: “it’s powerful to be able to come together [with those of other faiths] to stand in solidarity with working families and those that are vulnerable and navigating so many different challenges.”
From there, she continued her work as a member of a network of women collaboratively leading Godmothers of the Disappeared Vigils — vigils held every Tuesday outside the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) – as well as a prayer vigil for Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdés, 52, of Guatemala, who was killed when he fled onto the freeway from ICE agents raiding a Home Depot parking lot in Monrovia.
Pastor Tanya was particularly transformed by walking with a young father and his family when he was“checking in for his scheduled ICE check-in, and was just rounded up with a bunch of others on that day.” After being held for several weeks at the MDC, he was moved to a privately run ICE detention center in Adelanto, then to another in California City. He shared with her about how he survived imprisonment, about the cold and hunger,
He lost 25 pounds, and yet,…when I’ve been able to walk with him and his family, and ask him, you know, what kept you going? He said, “Knowing that people like you were walking with my wife and supporting her and checking in on her, praying with her, you know, knowing that we were now connected to CLUE and through ImmDef had representation, and that that gave me hope that there’s good people in the world that are helping us.” And so that has changed me, because it reminds me that it’s all about relationships and truly caring for one another, and…me …sending a text message or calling, or going to check in on his wife while he was still detained helped him…find that hope to keep going, and, and not sign the paperwork [for voluntary deportation].”
Pastor Tanya credits CLUE with helping her to be a better pastor and person by opening her eyes to others’ struggles and needs she was not aware of before, especially the interconnectedness of challenges faced by workers and those by immigrants. It prompted her to not just preach the good news, but to consider what did the good news look like to people who are hurting
What keeps her going and what she hopes inspires others to get involved is her belief “that every small act builds on the other small acts that others are doing, and it really does change things.Change happens, like the small consistent loving actions we choose to take together, so I just hope others will come to see that it truly makes a difference.”
If you would like to get involved in any of the programs mentioned in the story:
Godmothers of the Disappeared Vigil: Every Tuesday at the Los Angeles Federal Building at 12pm