TLDR: The Godmothers of the Disappeared is a weekly vigil held outside federal buildings where immigrants are detained, combining prayer, flowers, and direct witness with a distinctive practice: leaving flowers for both the families torn apart by immigration enforcement and the agents, soldiers, and officers carrying out deportations. Founded on the principle of revolutionary love, the action invites perpetrators to reconnect with their humanity while grieving those who have disappeared into the detention system.
What is the Godmothers of the Disappeared vigil?
The Godmothers of the Disappeared is a weekly gathering organized at the federal building in downtown Los Angeles, held every Tuesday from 12–1 pm. The action responds to the ongoing detention and disappearance of immigrants into the federal detention system. Rather than a march or protest in the traditional sense, the vigil is grounded in witness, prayer, and symbolic gesture—a spiritual and political response to what Valarie Kaur describes as an injustice too grave to remain silent about.
The vigil takes its power from its specificity: it happens at the federal building itself, the physical location where detained immigrants are held. This is not an abstract action. On the very morning of one vigil documented in this video, Pastor Ambado and others witnessed detainees inside the building waving their hands toward the gatherers outside, a moment that embodies the direct connection between those grieving and those being held.
Why gather at the federal building specifically?
Pastor Ambado explains the choice plainly: "When people are detained, they brought here in this building and even this morning we were walking some of the detainees were, you know, waving their hands toward us as we were, you know, walking around the building. How can be silent with such injustice is happening in our country. That's why we do it."
The federal building is not just symbolically significant; it is the material site of harm. By gathering there, participants refuse the distance that allows atrocity to continue unwitnessed. They show up, not to be seen by authorities, but to be felt by those detained—to say through their presence: you are not forgotten, you are known, you matter.
How does the vigil practice revolutionary love toward those causing harm?
What makes this vigil extraordinary is not only its solidarity with the detained, but its extension of care to ICE agents, soldiers, and officers perpetrating the cruelty. The practice is explicit: flowers are left for immigrant families who have been taken, and then flowers are left again for the enforcers themselves.
This is not forgiveness or moral equivalence. It is, as Kaur articulates it, a maternal stance: "We see you, even you, through the eyes of a mother. And we leave no one outside of our circle of care." In this gesture, the vigil makers are not denying the violence being committed. They are instead addressing themselves to "whatever humanity is still lodged inside your heart" in the perpetrators, calling them toward change, toward standing "on the side of love."
This practice reflects what Kaur calls revolutionary love—a refusal to write anyone off as irredeemable, even as one opposes their actions completely. The flowers for ICE agents are an invitation: to see your own humanity reflected back, to feel the presence of people who refuse to hate you, and to ask what it would mean to use your power differently.
What role does prayer and spiritual practice play?
The vigil is fundamentally a spiritual action. As Pastor Ambado prays during the gathering, Kaur shares what she experiences: "While you were praying, I was crying. I was crying because I could feel the power of the hope and the courage and the care that you bring." The prayer is not separate from the political work—it is the work.
Pastor Ambado describes the spiritual landscape of the action: "I feel that they God is here with them and through our prayers I know I can feel that God is safe here. I am. I'm in control and I know they're going to be free one of these days." This articulates a theology of presence and trust—that God is present with the detained, that through the act of prayer and witness, the community participates in a larger liberation already underway.
The use of flowers as a ritual object carries weight. Flowers are fragile, temporary, renewable. Leaving them is an act that acknowledges both grief and belief—that beauty can be offered even in the face of systemic cruelty, that the work will continue weekly, that the gesture will be repeated and renewed.
How does this action spread across regions?
Kaur emphasizes the importance of this model traveling: "I really want you to know about this action because it is so beautiful and I think the more of this can spread around the country, the more we will be able to stay in the labor and to change all of this." The vigil is not meant to remain local to Los Angeles. It is a replicable template for communities facing the same detention and deportation crisis.
In the video, this principle is enacted in real time. Kaur is in Minneapolis, while Pastors Ambado and Carlos are in Los Angeles. They carry a message of solidarity: "We are standing with you, everyone. I know it's horrible, terrible what you're going through. We went through the same exactly situation in the summer here in Los Angeles." The experience of immigration enforcement is shared; so is the response.
Pastor Carlos extends the circle further: "And uh we're praying for all, you know, all the people, not only the immigrants, but all those that are standing against the this tyranny." The vigil's reach includes not only those directly detained, but all those resisting the apparatus of deportation.
What is the relationship between grief and justice in this action?
Grief saturates this vigil. It is not incidental—it is central. The act of leaving flowers for those taken, of standing in the presence of detained people waving from windows, of praying for their freedom, is the performance of collective grief. This grief is political. It refuses the narrative that deportations are administrative decisions, mere bureaucratic removals. Instead, it names them for what they are: disappearances, separations, the tearing apart of families and communities.
Yet the grief is inseparable from hope. Pastor Ambado speaks of a faith in coming liberation: "I know they're going to be free one of these days." The vigil holds both simultaneously—the present anguish of detention and the future possibility of freedom. This tension animates the work.
Who participates and how is the community built?
The vigil shown here includes faith leaders from different traditions, people from Los Angeles and visitors from out of state, people who know detained immigrants personally and those standing in solidarity. The gathering is explicitly "beloved friends"—a language of kinship that precedes and outlasts any single action.
The vigil is open. Each Tuesday, anyone can show up at the Federal Building downtown Los Angeles from 12–1 pm. It is not a members-only group or a restricted gathering. The weekly repetition is key: it creates the possibility of sustained presence, of newcomers joining, of deepening commitment over time.
Where to go from here
If you live in Los Angeles, the Godmothers of the Disappeared vigil meets every Tuesday from 12–1 pm at the Federal Building in downtown. If you live elsewhere, the model is transportable. The template is: find the federal detention center or ICE processing facility in your region, organize a weekly vigil, bring flowers, pray, invite others to witness and to grieve together, extend care even to those perpetrating harm. Sign up for Valarie Kaur's newsletter at revolutionarylove.org for resources, further guidance, and updates on how this work is spreading. Follow her on Instagram and TikTok (@valariekaur) for more actions and reflections on revolutionary love in this moment.
