Deportation Defense Team Question and answers
At our recent District Conference, delegates approved a $15,000 donation to the Deportation Defense Response Team. Since conference, there has been a lot of confusion surrounding this organization. We hope this email will address the confusion. This Team is actively involved in immigration support and shares information with the district regularly. If you would like to stay current with the information, you are encouraged to visit our website frequently as information will be posted as we are made aware. We are sharing this information with the understanding that we are not of one mind regarding immigration. As with other controversial topics we pray that we may have respectful and courteous conversations around this topic.
The Southern Ohio and Kentucky District’s Support for the Deportation Defense Response (DDR) Team
What is the Deportation Defense Response Team?
The Deportation Defense Response (DDR) Team was initiated by four Church of the Brethren Districts (Atlantic Northeast, Atlantic Southeast, Virlina, and Pacific Southwest), working in partnership with On Earth Peace and the Church of the Brethren Office of Intercultural Ministries. The DDR team exists to serve congregations in all Church of the Brethren districts, exhorting the church to care for our siblings and neighbors under threat of immigration-related detention and deportation.
Why Brethren & Immigrant Justice?
The Annual Conference statements in 1982 and 1983 on "Undocumented Persons and Refugees in the United States” and "Providing Sanctuary for Latin American and Haitian Refugees" are evidence that our response to immigrants and refugees has long been a concern of the Church of the Brethren. Now over forty years later, we are witnessing violent attacks across the United States against this group of people.
Church of the Brethren congregations, including two congregations in our district, have experienced firsthand the devastating injustices committed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many members have been unjustly detained and deported, and many more are living in fear—afraid to attend church services, work, or necessary medical appointments. Throughout the country, we are witnessing beloved church members, neighbors, fathers, mothers, and children being torn from their homes, workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods. They are isolated from their families and communities, and many reportedly remain in horrific conditions within overcrowded detention centers.
If efforts to release them fail, many of our brothers and sisters are deported to a country they had previously fled, and some even to foreign prisons or camps. The law is meant to protect, but increasingly we are seeing the law being used to abuse.
The Deportation Defense Response Team is committed to standing alongside our siblings in Christ and our neighbors affected by this crisis, and they affirm the aforementioned statements as well as the 2022 statement on "Standing with People of Color."
Southern Ohio and Kentucky’s Support
As a district, we have amended our budget to make a contribution of $15,000 to the DDR team’s Legal and Mutual Aid Fund, which directly supports impacted members of Church of the Brethren congregations. Grants of up to $2500 per individual are given to cover personal and legal expenses related to costs incurred for immigration, asylum, and related application fees, immigration-related travel, airline fees, family support when a deportation has occurred, and more.
We also affirm and support the DDR team’s continued efforts to educate, network, and equip individuals and congregations through providing resources, training, prayer and pastoral care gatherings, book clubs, and other organizing efforts.
Find out more about the work of the DDR team on the DDR Webpage and make sure to browse resources in their Toolkit
Additionally, we encourage you to fill out the DDR Survey to let the team know how to support your congregations and your efforts to advocate for the immigrants in your communities. You may also email the team directly by contacting migrantjustice@OnEarthPeace.org.
The Legal & Mutual Aid Fund
The Deportation Defense Response Team is incredibly grateful for the generous support of the DDR Legal and Mutual Aid Grant Fund. At Annual Conference in Greensboro on July 7, 2025, On Earth Peace challenged the denomination to raise $100,000. And the church did it. As of December 1, 2025, $138,300.00 has been raised to support individuals and families caught in the immigration system. Donations have arrived from 6 districts, at least 50 individuals, at least 12 congregations, and a grant from Brethren Disaster Ministries.
The Fund, which is administered by the Atlantic Southeast District Church of the Brethren,* has approved grants to 13 congregations of the Church of the Brethren on behalf of 40 individuals. Grants are disbursed to congregations on behalf of specific individuals in need. Grants are given up to $2500 per person. A committee of three representing Virlina, Atlantic Southeast, and Pacific Southwest districts reviews applications and makes decisions. Most grants have gone to help with attorney fees. Several have been used to pay for the application process for temporary protective service cards, green cards, and other immigration-status-related petitions. A dozen have included requests for mutual aid while a family member is in detention or has been deported and no longer contributing to the family income.
In light of the pressing and ongoing need, On Earth Peace has announced a call for the next $150,000 in fundraising to meet urgent needs related to immigration enforcement so that we can continue to meet needs of our brothers and sisters as they occur. Will you and your congregation or district support the Deportation Defense Response Legal and Mutual Aid Fund in reaching the new total goal of $250,000?
Irvin Heishman, pastor of West Charleston Church of the Brethren, Tipp City Ohio, writes,
“A grant from the Legal Fund paid a fourth month of rent (after our church paid the previous three months of rent) keeping a Haitian family from becoming homeless after their work permits were revoked. The humanitarian parole program for Haitians under which they were legally in the US was canceled by the US government, which invalidated their work permits and their driver's licenses. The father had wisely applied for asylum for the family in January, and so in October (over nine months later, and four months after their documents were invalidated because of the closure of the humanitarian parole program), both parents now again have work permits and are back to work. The Deportation Defense Response Team helped our congregation help this family bridge four months of unemployment with rent payments, keeping them from homelessness. They are now back on their feet and more secure with an active asylum case in process. Thanks to OEP and the DDRT Legal and Mutual Aid Fund for supporting folks like this to bridge gaps and address needs in this insane time.”
In October, moved by the ongoing crisis, Mark and Rhonda Pittman Gingrich (director of Annual Conference) gave a $10,000 challenge gift, hoping it would inspire others in the denomination to step forward with generous gifts to sustain the program and the Legal Fund. They shared,
“We are making this gift in memory of Rhonda’s mother, Marianne Rhoades Pittman, who would be heartbroken and angry about what is happening to our brothers and sisters. Our family life has been enriched by the inclusion of a Vietnamese refugee family the Champaign congregation sponsored in the 1980s. Marianne was known for how she embraced the beauty of diversity and her gift of turning strangers into family.”
PSWD District Executive Russ Matteson writes to church members about reaching the goal of $100,000, “We are so thankful that you have been willing to care for neighbors in this way. And, you need to know the truth. We are still receiving applications, and we still need your support. In fact, having already made forty grants, we already have applications in hand for the next thirty.”
The fund is described at www.onearthpeace.org/immigrant legal mutual aid fund
You can now donate online to the Legal and Mutual Aid Fund: www.onearthpeace.org/ legal mutual aid fund donations
You can also mail checks to Atlantic Southeast District with “DDR” in the memo line. Checks can be sent to Atlantic Southeast District, 64954 Orchard Dr., Goshen, IN 46526. To send checks larger than $10,000 and for any other questions contact Beth Sollenberger at atlanticsoutheastcob@gmail.com
Congregations needing financial help to aid their immigrant church members may apply for grants from the Legal and Mutual Aid Fund by contacting ddrcobcoordinator@gmail.com or 561-647-8981 to receive the application form.
We are sharing this information with the understanding that we are not of one mind regarding immigration. As with other controversial topics we pray that we may have respectful and courteous conversations around this topic.
