Faith Community Condemns Immigration Tactics
FEBRUARY 2026
The Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (MVUUF) of Dayton, Ohio condemns the cruel, unjust, and dangerous actions of federal agents and others against our immigrant community members and demands an end to this abuse of power.
We are witnessing violence and terror used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) along with Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) in major cities across the United States and in facilities housing people detained by immigration authorities. Perpetuating our country’s history of violent white supremacy, ICE and CBP are relentlessly targeting our Black and Brown community members, causing extreme racialized trauma in the bodies of adults and children alike. Immigrants and non-immigrants have been killed and families have been torn apart by their actions. These cruel actions have become the new norm and cannot be dismissed as mere exceptions.
We, as Unitarian Universalists, believe that ICE and CBP are violating our constitutional rights, our nation’s laws of due process, basic human rights, and our Unitarian Universalist religious values. Our faith affirms interdependence, pluralism, justice, and equity for all. We need all of us.
Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship urges all who care about human rights to join us in condemning the unjust, inhumane, and violent efforts of ICE, CBP and others. Yet, we hold that no statement or condemnation is enough. We call all people of conscience to join us in prophetic acts of resistance and to actively demonstrate love of neighbor to our immigrant community members going forward.
MVUUF Reproductive Rights Public Statement
SEPTEMBER 2022
The Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (MVUUF) supports the rights of people who can become pregnant to bodily autonomy and reproductive choices. People who can become pregnant have difficult choices to make about what is best for their family, their health, and their futures. Those choices should remain with them, their families and their healthcare provider.
Without safe access to resources and reproductive healthcare including, but not only, abortion, people who can become pregnant will lack the human dignity and right to decide when and how to parent children in safe homes and communities with sustainable resources. These people will be unable to make healthcare decisions that are best for them and their families. Access to reproductive health care, including abortion, is often difficult for people who are young, living with low incomes, Black, Indigenous and People of Color, people living in rural areas, and in states with restrictive reproductive laws.
Our UU values call us to act with justice, equity and compassion in human relations. We are alarmed by recent judicial and legislative attacks on reproductive rights. We call on legislators to support human rights, not restrict them.
MVUUF Transgender Rights Public Statement
SEPTEMBER 2022
As Unitarian Universalists, Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship promotes self-determination and advocates for people to be who they are without interference. We support the dignity of all people, including the right to access jobs, education, recreation, healthcare and public services. We affirm the rights of people who are transgender so that life may be lived to its fullest by everyone. We recognize the importance of love and support for all vulnerable people, especially transgender youth.
In Ohio and many other states, much legislation has been proposed and some passed to restrict the rights of people who are transgender. Some schools and school districts have anti-transgender policies or are considering them. Such laws and policies restrict youth access to medical care or to sports, place barriers to screening, and require people to declare one of two genders, when they may not fit in that box. In some states, teachers are not allowed to use the pronouns a child requests. The Ohio Legislature has tried to restrict medical and psychological care and treatment for people with transgender identities, especially youth. These policies and legislation do not represent our UU values. Family values must include the rights of transgender youth and parents.
MVUUF Anti-Racism Public Statement
- As people of faith, Unitarian Universalists affirm the inherent worth and dignity of all persons and work for social justice to embody that dignity.
- We condemn racist police practices that deny Black people in this country human rights and, in the case of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and so many before them, the very breath of life.
- It has gone on far too long.
- We side with the families of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in love and we side with all impacted by murder and other violence as a tool of oppression by people of power.
- We urge the greater Dayton community to reflect deeply on our criminal justice system and how to transform it into one of restorative justice that is safer for everyone.
- This is the time to join with others to raise our voices and stop this oppression by police and by white vigilantes.
- Holding police accountable is an essential step.
- Recognizing that racist police practices are a symptom of pervasive and systemic racism in our national culture and institutions, we re-commit ourselves to anti-racism work.