A Network of BCNE Clinics Assures Undocumented Residents That They “Are Not Alone in the Whole Immigration Challenge”
Pastor Genivaldo Alves Gomes of Igreja Batista da Cidade and immigration attorney Antonio Massa Viana spoke February 10 to some fifty people at a three-hour immigration clinic.
A small network of New England Baptist pastors opened church-based immigration clinics to minister to their undocumented neighbors if they face deportation from the United States.
Genivaldo Alves Gomes, pastor of Igreja Batista da Cidade (Baptist City Church), Lowell, Massachusetts, promoted on social media and hosted a three-hour immigration clinic February 10. About fifty people from the community and the church attended the public event in person and another thirty joined online.
Genivaldo Alves Gomes; his wife, Marcela C. da Silva Alves; daughter, Livia Alves Silva; and son, João Alves Silva.
The Brazilian church leader has served his urban congregation since it was planted four years ago with the assistance of Mill City Church, so he knows his neighbors.
“We advise them to be as cautious as possible, and we always try to help them with whatever they need, a lawyer, for example.”
“We also try to take care of their kids if they can’t bring them to a courtroom. We always try to help people in this area as much as possible,” he said. “If anyone is new to the church or if they need any help, they can contact us and we’ll [get help from] experienced professionals.”
One of the chief goals of the BCNE clinics is to make sure that people receive accurate legal information without being cheated.
Immigration clinics also were held at churches in Providence, Rhode Island, and Bridgeport, Connecticut. More clinics are being planned for Spanish, Creole, and Arabic speakers in other Massachusetts churches, as well as churches in Rhode Island and Connecticut.
“God Loves Immigrants.” “It’s About Jesus.”
Gomes introduced the immigration clinic with a few songs and words of assurance. “We told them to not be scared of what is going on. People were scared of even leaving their house” and, as a result, they kept their children from attending school.
Gomes then read an Old Testament passage about immigrants, noted that “God is with you all the time” and, relying for translation on his tenth-grade son, João Alves Silva, he concluded with these dramatic words: “God loves the immigrants.”
With the help of Antonio Massa Viana, a volunteer immigration attorney, Gomes and pastors of Portuguese Baptist Church in Saugus, Lovely Church (also called First Brazilian Baptist Church of Greater Boston) in Peabody, and other Boston-area churches, the clinics are offering marginalized individuals and families legal advice—yet the clinics are not intended as a political statement.
Rather, as Lierte Soares Jr., the Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE) president and the pastor of churches in Framingham and Georgetown, Massachusetts, emphasized, spiritual care and encouragement are clearly the focus of the clinics. “It’s not about [politics], it’s about Jesus. It’s about Jesus!” he emphasized.
Rather than focusing on controversial government policy, Soares added, the immigration clinic organizers take their lead from an Old Testament passage: “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God” Leviticus 19:33-34 (NIV).
Followers of Jesus Christ should consider themselves “foreigners in this world because it is only our temporary home,” and they should “view [foreigners] as opportunities to demonstrate God’s love,” states a note in the Life Application Study Bible.
Legal Advice Offered and Questions Answered
Antonio Massa Viana, an immigration law and civil rights lawyer, who is the managing attorney of Massa Viana Law, Southborough, Massachusetts, has volunteered many hours for the BCNE church clinics. An immigrant who first moved from Brazil to the United States when he was 12 years old, Viana tackled the immigration system first in his own personal life.
Immigration attorney Antonio Massa Viana
“Immigration policy changes all the time [and] people are scared,” Viana said. There’s a significant amount of misunderstanding about immigration, in general. Following his opening presentation, those present asked “a ton of questions.”
“When I do these clinics, we don’t do any actual legal work onsite. It’s mostly information about having a broader conversation. It’s mostly about speaking to people, trying to [determine] whether there’s a pathway for them to get legal status. Immigration law is fairly complex and, once they run out of status, they do not have a pathway to legal residency,” he said.
“[Our] laws are very outdated, and they don’t serve the current needs. So, I think the aim with these clinics, number one, is obviously to make sure that we give people the information they need.”
“But, number two,” he continued, “one of the big concerns that I have—and it’s something that I see very often—is people who just moved into the United States and sometimes pay tons of money in legal fees to notarios, who are not attorneys, or even to some attorneys, unfortunately, who make false promises when there’s really no pathway” for permanent residency or citizenship.
A Roman Catholic and currently a member of Ascension Parish in Sudbury, Massachusetts, Viana’s work is informed by the example of Jesus when he washed his disciples’ feet after the Last Supper (John 13:4-5) and by his example of genuine love: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command” John 15:12-14 (NIV).
“I believe in that big time. It really informs a lot of what I do in my life, and it certainly informs a lot of what I do through my work,” Viana concluded.
Building a Multicultural Church Network
A Brazilian “reverse missionary” to the United States, Soares paraphrased a thought-provoking statement: “Your car is Japanese, your coffee is Brazilian, your pizza is Italian, your sneakers are Vietnamese, your clothes are Chinese—and I’m your neighbor. Why do you still call me a foreigner?”
“We’re developing a kingdom mindset. Jesus was always a bridge builder. He spoke about love for neighbors (see Leviticus 19:18b and Mark 12:31). We’re building the network of BCNE churches so that pastors can do ministry in their communities and so people can understand that, in our churches, they can get help. They can get guidance. They are not alone in the whole immigration challenge.”
For more on immigration, read “America Could Lose 10 Million Christians to Mass Deportation,” Christianity Today, March 31, 2025, which reports on an important new study by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The report found (p.14) “that 8 percent of all Christians in the United States are either personally at risk of deportation or are household members of those at risk of deportation. That’s one out of every 12 Christians in the US. . . .”