This Boyle Heights church is in the immigration fray – again
On June 6, Father Brendan Busse, the pastor of Dolores Mission Church, was with families and students at the church’s parochial school when his phone “starts buzzing, buzzing, buzzing,” he recalls. He learned from a text that immigration agents were arresting workers at a garment manufacturer in Downtown LA.
“I had started my day at our eighth grade graduation, and ended the day picking up flash grenades off the ground,” he says. “They had been thrown at a crowd of people who were just trying to get to their families.”
By the time Father Brendan arrived at the scene, family members, lawyers and others had surrounded the building. Community members were trying to get inside the gates as ICE agents tried to keep people out. Father Brendan was standing next to a young woman at the gate when an ICE agent grabbed her.