Illinois church displays anti-ICE nativity scene where baby Jesus' hands are zip-tied and wrapped in emergency foil

As the festive season is right around the corner, a church in Illinois has displayed its anti-ICE protest by altering its Christmas to be themed after the nationwide detention of illegal immigrants. 

Per @OliLondonTV's X tweet, the Church - called Lake Street Church of Evanston - claims to draw parallels between the "refugee experience" of the Holy families and that of ICE's detentions. Its display contained a baby Jesus in a crate, who was wrapped in emergency foil with his hands zip-tied. 

Woke church in Illinois displays anti-ICE nativity scene with baby Jesus with his hands zip tied and wrapped in emergency foil to protest against ICE.

Lake Street Church of Evanston has also displayed Joseph and Mary wearing gas masks being detained by Roman soldiers meant to… pic.twitter.com/j5nzPT95Si

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) December 4, 2025

Meanwhile, the installations of Joseph and Mary were made to wear gas masks on their faces, with Mary being detained by Roman soldiers, who stood as depictions of the ICE agents. 

A Facebook post by the Church uploaded last week - which contained pictures of their Christmas installations - read:

"The Holy Family were refugees. This is not political interpretation, this is the reality described in the stories our tradition has told and retold for millenia. By witnessing this familiar story through the reality faced by migrants today, we hope to restore its radical edge, and to ask what it means to celebrate the birth of a refugee child while turning away those who follow in that child’s footsteps."

This isn't the first time Evanston's Church has put together an unconventional and controversial display. According to Fox News, it has also hung banners about Black Lives Matter and social justice issues in the past.

​A Harvard professor detained by ICE has agreed to leave the US voluntarily

While ICE agents might be facing backlash in many parts of the US, the news of their operations are also gaining success has also made headlines. 

Earlier this week, the DHS announced the arrest of Professor Carlos Portugal Gouvea, a Brazilian professor at Harvard Law School, by the ICE. Professor Gouvea was arrested in October 2025 for allegedly firing a BB gun outside the synagogue in Boston one day before Yom Kippur. 

While the Brazilian national first told officers he was "hunting rats," he pleaded guilty to the illegal use of an air rifle a month later, on November 13. After ICE agents arrested him on December 3, Gouvea agreed to leave the US voluntarily rather than being deported, Fox News reported. 

In the wake of Gouvea's choice to leave the country, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin of DHS issued a statement reading:

"It is a privilege to work and study in the United States, not a right. There is no room in the United States for brazen, violent acts of antisemitism like this. They are an affront to our core principals as a country and an unacceptable threat against law-abiding American citizens."

McLaughlin also pointed out that DHS wasn't obligated to admit any foreigner who had committed "these inexplicably reprehensible acts," nor to allow them to stay.