Along the front lawn of the Jaffrey United Church, black flags flutter in the wind. Each bears the name and age, written in white, of someone who has died while being held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention in 2025 and 2026.
On a recent Sunday, Rev. Mark Koyama centered his sermon on the issue before the congregation helped raise the flags. The installation is inspired by prayer flags in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, with multiple flags hanging down from a long rope.
“This is not only an installation,” said Koyama, “but a part of the life of the church, and a way we can galvanize our moral concern about this issue.”
The Granite State Organizing Project, a faith-based, grassroots community organization, initially proposed the installation. The project spans across multiple towns and locations.
As of July, 65,000 people were being held in ICE detention in the United States, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research nonprofit. Non-citizens are waiting significantly longer now than they were two years ago for their cases to be decided in court — an average of 901 days as of this July, compared to 597 days in July of 2024.
ICE keeps a report of those who have died in custody available on its website, with 24 reported this year up to August (by law, ICE must make in-custody deaths public within 90 days). In the previous year, there were 31 deaths. This is compared to 11 deaths in 2024, seven in 2023, three in 2022 and five in 2021.
Koyama said the United Church has been involved in several other projects to raise awareness around social issues, including creating quilts with eight other churches, memorializing the final words of George Floyd after he died when a police officer knelt on his neck during an arrest in 2020, and an installation of 283 white crosses in 2019 to commemorate the number of people killed in mass shootings so far that year.
Church members met several times to tear the cloth, create the flags and write the names in addition to blessing the flags, reading the names, saying prayers and having five church members select a name to research and speak about during the service.
Koyama said the flags will remain on display through at least November, before being brought inside for the winter. He said it is meant to be a “living installation” with additional names added as the list is updated.
“As always, we’re really concerned as a faith community to lift up the sacred nature of these lives. We believe that we’re all children of God, and that no one is disposable. This is very important and dear to our hearts,” said Koyama. “We believe the moral fabric of our country is at stake, and this is one act that we can present the moral fabric of our country is at stake.”