Priest's 50-day trek on foot to NYC highlights migrant families affected by ICE raids

CHICAGO (OSV News) -- A Chicago-area priest is on a mission to highlight the plight of families upended by the current mass deportation efforts in the United States by making a 50-day pilgrimage -- on foot -- from Chicago to New York.

Father Gary Graf left Oct. 6 from Pope Leo XIV's boyhood home in the south suburb of Dolton, Illinois, and headed for New York's Ellis Island, the historical symbol of immigrant arrivals to the U.S.

OSV News caught up with Father Gary Graf Oct. 15 as he was sitting outside a diner in Waterloo, Indiana, a tiny town in the northeastern part of the state close to the Ohio border.

The pastor of the predominantly Hispanic Our Lady of the Heights Parish in the south suburb of Chicago Heights was on day 10 of his trek.

"Well, right now I'm a little sore," he said.

But it wasn't because of the walking, which he said he was able to do at an average of about 20 miles per day. It was because he fell off a galloping horse and broke two ribs during one of his parish visits in north-central Indiana.

Father Graf, 67, had just visited with and heard from several local families concerned about the immigration crackdown in Chicago, and then was invited by the local pastor to pose for a photo on a horse that had not fully settled down after a hard gallop.

He is documenting his trip on Instagram, and on day 14 of his trip was in McClure, Ohio.

The priest has been calling for "comprehensive" immigration policy reform for years and said with the latest immigration enforcement actions, he "couldn't possibly stay in the parish" -- not while children were being separated from their families. The priest said he was compelled "to do something," along the lines of his other past projects.

In 2013, he made an illegal border crossing on foot from Mexico to Arizona. He told OSV News that upon entering, he said "an illegal act doesn't make you illegal," turned himself in to local authorities and said, "I'm sorry, thank you, and I need your help."

He said that experience was akin to what migrants entering the U.S. have done for decades "to answer this clarion call" to fill open laborer positions, when they need work.

Father Graf took a detour from his route to attend a talk at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, by an expert in "the Latin American experience." He said he was encouraged to learn that for immigrants who passed through the Ellis Island processing center, the main criteria was being fit to work. If they were unhealthy, they were turned away.

He said the 50-day walk, on an estimated 1,000 miles of an all-rural route, has "been, so far, really wonderful."

The message of hope, he said, was being brought to parishioners -- some with family in Chicago -- from several bilingual (Spanish-English) parishes where he stayed overnight.

"And the people just felt very supported," recounted Father Graf. "It felt good to see a priest who represents the church stop by their communities. They felt uplifted. They certainly have heard stories of what's going on in Chicago and elsewhere. And they fear that those things will happen to them, and so I think they need some hope."

Across the U.S., Christians account for approximately 80% of all of those at risk of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort, with the single largest group of affected Christians being Catholics, according to a joint Catholic-Evangelical report published by World Relief.

The report found one in six Catholics (18%) are either vulnerable to deportation or live with someone who is.

Father Graf has served in parishes throughout Chicago, where migrant families have been split because parents are noncitizens without papers. Under the current "Operation Midway Blitz" Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have conducted raids throughout predominantly Latino neighborhoods of Chicago, taking residents into custody, at times dropping teargas.

There are 5.62 million U.S. citizen children living with "an undocumented family member," according to an April 2025 report of the Brookings Institution and the Center for Migration Studies that looks at how deportations would affect the nation's child welfare system.

Father Graf said those families whose members have been taken by immigration agents include parents who stopped working, stopped picking up groceries and were too fearful to walk their children to school.

In the pastor's letter for his Oct. 19 parish bulletin, he wrote his walk is "intended to mobilize Americans from every state to demand that compassion, humanity and helping hands be restored to the immigration process." He also said it was time to "step up and speak out" that "immigrants are not strangers, but rather our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters."

According to Pew Research Center data released in June, more than four out of 10 Catholics in the U.S. are immigrants (29%) or the children of immigrants (14%). Eight out of 10 Hispanic Catholics are either born outside the U.S. (58%) or are the children of an immigrant (22%), while 92% of Asian Catholics are either immigrants (78%) or are the children of an immigrant (14%). However, few white Catholics -- just 15% -- share this immigrant experience: only 6% were born outside the U.S., with another 9% born in the U.S. to at least one immigrant parent.

During this pilgrimage, the priest acknowledged he had so far been in friendly places. The parishes and residents he came across were likeminded in their concern for the migrants who face deportation and are being pursued in the heavy-handed operation. He said on the walk, it has been crucial to hear people's personal takes on the issue.

However, he said, "I'm looking also forward to the opportunity to speak to those who are critical of this current generation of immigrants and how they come into the country, and listen to their story also. Until we hear everybody's story and listen to each other's story, are we going to hear the whole truth?"