Holding candles and flowers, a crowd gathered around an Evanston church’s Nativity display, where the familiar figurines stood quietly in the snow.
But the Nativity display of Lake Street Church looked different this year, transformed to pay tribute to those targeted by President Donald Trump’s escalated deportation campaign.
Mary wears a gas mask. The baby Jesus is wrapped in an emergency reflective blanket, his hands zip-tied. A sign says Joseph “didn’t make it” because of immigration enforcement.
Behind them stand masked Roman centurions. Their vests read “ICE,” short for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and “BP” for Border Patrol.
Lake Street Church is among several churches around the Chicago area and country that have reimagined their Nativity displays in response to the federal immigration campaign.
“We’re highlighting what it would be like if Jesus came into being in Chicago,” the Rev. Michael Woolf, the church’s pastor, said Wednesday at a vigil at the Nativity scene. “It’s not that dissimilar from the context we would find in the scripture.”
The church has previously used its Nativity scene to add commentary on local and international events. In 2023, the church’s display had baby Jesus lying in rubble to call attention to the destruction of Gaza during the Israel-Hamas War.
In this year’s Nativity scene, baby Jesus’ hands are zip-tied as a reference to the feds’ raid on a South Shore apartment building in September, Woolf said. Federal agents detained its residents, including some U.S. citizens and children, in an operation that came to exemplify the aggressive campaign in Chicago.
Mary’s gas mask signifies those used by protesters to mitigate the effects of tear gas, which federal agents have used extensively to quell protests, he added.
Some religious leaders and scholars have argued that Jesus was a refugee, and that the experience influenced his teachings.
At the vigil, Evanston resident Ann Hammond, who frequently attends events at Lake Street Church, said she thinks the display perfectly captures her thoughts as she reflects on the scripture story this Christmas.
She said the display is an “honest and true” representation of what’s going on in her community. “Operation Midway Blitz” has in recent months targeted the affluent northern suburb, where federal agents have arrested around three dozen people since early October.
“We are all immigrants. We need to protect our neighbors,” Hammond said. “We can’t pretend that we live in a fair and just world.”
Since his church installed the display last month, Woolf said his congregation has responded to it positively, though it has also garnered some criticism on how it is sending a political message.
The Department of Homeland Security says federal agents did not zip-tie children or infants. A department spokesperson, in a statement, called the Nativity display “offensive to Christians” and a “demonization of law enforcement.”
Woolf, detained for protesting at the ICE processing center in Broadview last month, has emerged as a vocal critic of the deportation blitz in Chicago.
“We’re choosing to say, ‘This is not normal,'” he said. “Faith communities have to raise their voice as loud as they can against what we are seeing.”
The Evanston church is not the only one making a statement.
In west suburban River Forest, a Nativity scene at Urban Village Church West has an empty manger. Mary, Joseph and Jesus were nowhere to be found, while cutouts of the Magi, shepherds and animals stand idly in the snow.
A sign reads, “Due to ICE activity in our community, the Holy Family is in hiding.”
The inspiration for the display came from a similar design at a Catholic church in the Boston area, said the Rev. Abby Holcombe, the church’s pastor.
She said her faith instructs her to advocate for immigrants, refugees and other people who are targeted. Holcombe said she has attended around 10 protests at the ICE Broadview facility. The pastor was among the religious leaders denied their request to deliver Communion to people being held in Broadview in October.
“Jesus said, ‘Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me. And when you welcome the stranger, you welcome me,” Holcombe said. “One verse in Deuteronomy says, ‘Cursed is the one who withholds justice from the foreigner.'”
Holcombe said she has received positive reactions from her congregation about the display. However, some people online have criticized it.
Still, she says the display is accurate biblical imagery with local context.
“We remember that Jesus was born to us as a vulnerable person, and it helps us remember the vulnerable people in our community,” she said.