'This budget is a moral document': Arizona interfaith vigil decries increased ICE funding

Raphael Romero Ruiz - Arizona Republic - July 2, 2025

The sound of a cicada's drone in a nearby palo verde tree rang loud during a hot July evening as more than two dozen people from across Arizona’s interfaith community gathered outside the Phoenix field office for Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a candlelight vigil organized in response to federal spending increases on immigration enforcement and detention spending. 

Despite an excessive heat warning and temperatures that reached 109 degrees in Phoenix, organizers from Corazon Arizona, a self-described "multi-racial, multi-faith organization," in partnership with the Arizona Faith Network, held a vigil on the corner of Central Avenue and Monte Vista Road.

Community members were invited to a July 1 peaceful demonstration, encouraged to wear white or religious vestments as a symbol of a "prophetic witness."

Participants shared testimonies, offered prayers, played music and called attention to what they described as the human impact of immigration policy and federal funding priorities. Many in attendance held signs with messages of solidarity with the immigrant community.

The Rev. Katie Sexton, the executive director of the Arizona Faith Network, addressed the crowd at the prayer vigil, sharing that she had spent the last three weeks advocating on Capitol Hill in D.C. Sexton told The Arizona Republic that while in D.C. she had spoken with congressional representatives and senators from Arizona who seemed "very responsive and welcoming."

"The concern is (that this is) going to throw so many folks off Medicaid and reduce SNAP, which is going to have a huge impact for the state of Arizona," Sexton said. "(It) also provides more funding for ICE, which we know will lead towards more deportations and people being disappeared as well."

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