BRAINTREE -- It was Dario's birthday.

He had come to the U.S. from Ecuador, seeking asylum after the abuse and neglect he had experienced in that country, and found work as a roofer in New Hampshire. During his lunch break, he was approached by plainclothes immigration agents who interrogated him. Dario did not speak English well enough to respond, so he was zip-tied, shackled, and put in a van with six other men. The arduous journey, which lasted for over six hours, took Dario from one detention center to another. Never once was he told where he was going and why. Dario ended up in Plymouth, where Catholic Charities lawyers worked for his release. Providing legal counsel to detained immigrants like Dario has become one of Catholic Charities' most common responsibilities during the second Trump administration.

Dario had no criminal record and an active asylum application, so a judge ordered him to be set free. The government appealed the decision, and Dario spent five months in detention until he was released just before Thanksgiving. Marjean Perhot, vice president of refugee and immigrant services for Catholic Charities Boston, was tasked with picking up Dario from the ICE facility in Burlington. She found him sitting on the side of the road in the cold, having had nothing to eat all day, wearing the same work clothes he had on when he was arrested on his birthday in July. Perhot gave him a coat and hat. After taking him back to his home, she saw woodchips and sawdust on her passenger seat. The remains of Dario's previous job, his previous life, had stayed with him all those months.

"This person that I'm sitting next to for the last hour or so is a real example of courage," Perhot remembered thinking to herself.

She said that in detention, Dario was told to leave the U.S. and even promised $1,000 if he went back to Ecuador.

"But he believed in our systems of laws and justice, and he did not want to give up hope, because he knew there was nothing left for him in Ecuador," Perhot said. "So I felt very honored to be in the presence of someone so strong and brave."

Perhot told Dario's story at a gathering of members of the St. Luke's Guild for Catholic physicians and the Catholic Lawyers' Guild of the Archdiocese of Boston. The two guilds gathered for joint Mass and brunch at the Archdiocese's Pastoral Center in Braintree on March 15. The Mass was celebrated by Msgr. Timothy Moran, chaplain of the Guild of St. Luke. It was followed by Perhot's talk, "Welcoming the Stranger."

"We're all seeing the same folks, right?" she said in her remarks. "Whether our law practices or in our hospitals, our clinics, and it's an opportunity for us to find a lot of our shared humanity and understanding."

When Catholic Charities was established in 1910, its client base was predominantly Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and Italy, but it now serves people of all faiths and nationalities. Helping refugees and immigrants is a core part of their mission. Since the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term, ICE has been detaining more and more immigrants like Dario, who have no criminal record and a legal right to be in the U.S. ICE is detaining six times as many children as it used to. More people have died in ICE custody than at any point since the organization was required to make records of detainee deaths public.

"Most of the people that are dying in detention are because they're not getting medical treatment they need," Perhot said. "Whether it's an ongoing medication for diabetes or heart conditions, they're not getting the medications that they need, and they're dying."

Catholic Charities Boston is currently providing legal representation to 584 immigrants and has filed over 600 work permit applications. Over 1,300 students attend its English-language classes. Across Massachusetts, 20,000 people are on waitlists to attend such classes. Catholic Charities' efforts to resettle new refugees have been put on hold since 2025, when the Trump administration cancelled all contracts between Catholic Charities and the U.S. government. Four staff members of Catholic Charities, themselves refugees from Afghanistan, Eritrea, and the Congo, lost their jobs. The only refugees being allowed into the U.S. under Trump are white South Africans. Refugees in some of the world's most dangerous countries are forced to wait indefinitely, separated from family members in the U.S. Along with fire and active shooter drills, Catholic Charities Boston conducts drills for possible ICE raids on its facilities.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a special message on immigration in November 2025. The first special message of any kind in 12 years, it condemned "the vilification of immigrants" and "the indiscriminate mass deportation of people."

"I think it's very encouraging that we are seeing a lot more prophetic voices being raised," Perhot said.

She clarified the Catholic Church's stance on immigration. According to Catholic social teaching, migrants, regardless of their legal status, are human beings made in the image of God and must be treated as such.

"They don't deserve to be labeled as 'illegals,' 'aliens,' their rights should be respected," she said.

The Catholic Church calls on wealthy nations to welcome those from poorer lands seeking a new life. At the same time, nations have the right to control their borders, but must do so in a way that affirms human dignity.

"That doesn't necessarily mean that if someone comes to your border, you will strip a mother and a child apart," she said. "That's not respecting the sanctity of human life."

She echoed Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV's condemnations of the abuse of immigrants and refugees.

"We hear about people, just complete falsehoods about people who eat cats and dogs," she said, referencing a widely-criticized claim about Haitian immigrants. "And that's promoted, but that makes it a lot easier, then, for us to say, 'Lock them up. Lock them up. Get rid of them because they're not human anymore.'"

The Trump administration has made efforts to expel Haitians, among other nationalities, who are legally in the U.S. on Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Tens of thousands of Haitians on TPS live and work in Massachusetts, and have become vital to the state's healthcare industry. Many of them came to the state following the devastating 2010 earthquake. Poverty, mass violence, and kidnappings in their home country have only worsened since then.

"We've made all these temporary statuses because Congress cannot come together and have reform," Perhot said.

TPS protections for Haitians were supposed to expire on Feb. 3, but the night before, word came that a federal judge blocked the move.

"I think we all burst into tears when we knew that next morning, our colleagues would be safe and they could come back to work," Perhot said.

That morning, she hugged one of her staff members, a Haitian woman who came to the U.S. on TPS.

"Here's a person that's helping other immigrants," Perhot said. "She's trying to find a pathway, but there's not always logical, easy pathways for people to stay here permanently."

Refugees in the U.S., who were heavily scrutinized before coming into the country, are being interviewed again. If immigration officials find any inconsistency between the two interviews, they have the right to detain refugees. When Perhot heard this, she was astonished.

"Something that I never thought in my lifetime I would see," she said. "But refugees who have already been vetted every way to Sunday are now being called back in now that they're here, and asked to remember what they said in their interview, how they said it, what their persecution was. Even children."

Perhot encouraged the doctors and lawyers to support the work of Catholic Charities, particularly paralegals who could volunteer to provide legal services for immigrants.

"People are very isolated, very afraid, and so we should come together as the body of the Church to try to help and stand in solidarity," she said.