Hosted by CBFNC’s Welcome Network director Randy Carter, our most recent Reflections on Faith conversation focused on the impact of the “Charlotte’s Web” ICE operation on immigrant families, churches and the broader Charlotte community.
The reflections below offer three different perspectives from the conversation. Together, they bear witness to both the challenges faced by our immigrant neighbors and the ways people of faith responded with presence, compassion and hope.
Randy Carter
The second “Reflections on Faith: The Life of the Immigrant” Zoom conversation focused on the November 2025 immigration enforcement. Kheresa Harmon, Minister for Children and Families at St. John’s Baptist Church in Charlotte and Anna Cushman, a deacon at St. John’s and Immigration Attorney in Charlotte, relayed personal experiences and other stories from the raids that continue to impact families and churches. Our dialogue covered what happened, the past and present impacts, and important stories that need to be remembered.
I asked both Kheresa and Anna what they sensed CBFNC needed to hear about this. Anna immediately responded, “I think about the families and churches who are missing someone right now. What are we doing to love them and support them?” Anna reminded everyone that there are families living this pain every day.
Kheresa then encouraged the following, “Get to know your neighbors and get to know those churches that are the immigrant churches. Partner with them.” She offered the simple but needed reminder that shared work in ministry in difficult times begins with consistent genuine relationships.
As both of them shared their experiences, I found myself so thankful these two servants, Kheresa and Anna, represent Jesus Christ and CBFNC.
(Randy Carter, Welcome Network director)
Kheresa Harmon
As Operation Charlotte’s Web was spun in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I bore witness to the birthing of an operation of Advent hope. God worked through the lives of ordinary people to do the extraordinary work of the Kingdom.
Congregations, businesses, retirees, children, mothers and sanitation workers rolled up their sleeves to collect and sort diapers and hygiene products. Soon empty cardboard boxes were filled to the brim with everything from rice to bottles of Fabuloso to cartons of eggs and gallons of milk. To the abundance, God’s people added cloves of garlic, sweet potatoes, apples and peppers. Trunks were loaded and caravans of ordinary women and men traveled the corridors of the Queen City to deliver boxes of food to our neighbors who hid, in fear, behind locked doors and drawn curtains in their own homes.
For weeks God’s people showed up, and continued showing up, to carry an operation of Advent hope to our sisters and brothers in Christ. It was and is the kind of hope that turns the world upside down and right side up. That’s the work of the Gospel, and that kind of hope swept away a web of fear that entangled our city.
(Kheresa Harmon, Minister for Children and their Families, St. John’s Baptist Church)
Anna Cushman
Too often our immigrant neighbors are wrongly portrayed as nefarious invaders instead of children of God. During Operation Charlotte’s Web, it was government actors who invaded our community and brought terror and heartbreak to immigrant families and those who love them. My client still bears the scars of months of detention. He entered lawfully and has status. His brown skin is beautiful to God. And yet it was his skin that made him a target. I pray that the God of Moses will lead us away from the willful ignorance and cruelty of such days. May we love one another better, including and especially our immigrant neighbors.
(Anna M. Cushman, Immigration Attorney; St. John’s Baptist Church, Deacon)
View a recording of the conversation here.
Reflections on Faith: A Look into the Life of the Immigrant is a virtual interview series that aims to provide a perspective that deepens our understanding of how contemporary politics affect immigrant and refugee communities, offering opportunities for growth in faith and transformative action. “True education is praxis—reflection and action of people upon the world in order to transform it.” —Paulo Freire.
