Felt flags, a majority of them black, swayed lightly in the wind as they hung before the New Hampshire State House arch, where a circle of people gathered to honor immigrants who have died in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The flags were raised as a symbol of loss, each bearing the name of the deceased person, along with their place of birth, age and date of death.
The multi-faith vigil, called Refusing to Forget, lasted for about an hour. The flags, however, stayed up all day.
The display drew together different traditions, with a mixture of the structure of Buddhist prayer flags and the memorial aspect of the stumbling stones that commemorate victims of the Nazi regime. The ceremony sought to share immigrant stories as more than a statistic or a headline, with the flags as a tangible symbol of remembrance.
“Let us recognize that our neighbors are not strangers simply because their journeys began elsewhere,” Divine Nkwelle said to the crowd gathered on Monday afternoon.
Nkwelle, who hails from Cameroon, serves as the program coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, an organization that promotes peace and social justice. “The person seeking safety today could be the person who helps our community tomorrow. The families seeking refuge today share the same hopes, fears, and aspirations as families elsewhere.”
Since January 2025, which marked the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidential term, around 60 people have died in immigration detention centers across the United States. According to the National Immigration Project, 33 people perished in ICE custody in 2025, which is the highest number in over 20 years.
Doris Hampton, the cofounder of New Hampshire Immigrant Mutual Aid Fund and a leader of the Concord ceremony, had a message for attendees when it came to these numbers.
“Our intention in refusing to forget our immigrant friends and neighbors who died across the United States in I.C.E. detention is to resist our government’s attempt to erase people, to remember that each person is precious, lived in our communities, and contributed to our country,” she said.
The New Hampshire Immigrant Mutual Aid Fund serves as a resource for immigrant families that have had members taken into detention or deported. Through fundraising, their aim is to provide immigrant families who lost someone in detention or deportation with resources the family otherwise wouldn’t be able to finance.
“It was 2018, when they started separating families at the border and taking people, and I remember being so shocked by that, that it really got me involved,” said Glen Ring, co-founder of New Hampshire Immigrant Mutual Aid Fund. After retiring from teaching at Concord High School, Ring has devoted time to supporting immigrants and the local community.
A gong rang after the name of each immigrant was spoken aloud by each member participating in the memorial. There were 61 names voiced.
“We believe that the more these events are conducted, and the more people get to know you and participate in it, there is a chance that it might shift perspective,” said Nkwelle. “It’s easy to just think about a number or an individual or people just moving all over the place. But there is a story behind every migrant.”
Sometimes, adamancy in keeping one’s opinion unchanged is caused by not hearing the stories of people, Nkwelle added.
Concordia Lutheran Church Reverend John Hopkins said he hopes that if more people know what’s happening, more voices will be lifted up, and people will come together as a collective.
“I think we have to continually put in front of people what’s really happening,” he said.
His congregation belongs to the Granite State Organizing Project, which helps protect the rights of immigrants. The project brings people to the Norris Cotton Federal Building in Manchester every first Tuesday of the month to hold a faith vigil in protest of I.C.E enforcement.
“We are never doing it by ourselves,” Hopkins said. “We’re always doing stuff for other people, because that’s the only way that we live in this world, in this community.”
Nkwelle, for his part, hopes that people will reflect on the pain and the “not knowing” aspect of what it means to be an immigrant in America. Migration, he said, is not just moving from one country to another. It is finding asylum and belonging, while filling basic needs like food and water.
He hopes compassion will be found in our society. Compassion gives courage, he said, and love becomes visible through how people care for one another.
A clear message shone through the fabric squares that pieced together the lives lost to I.C.E violence: human dignity should not depend on immigration status.
“It might be challenging to connect with people, get along with people, or meet people who wouldn’t share our history, wouldn’t share our culture, wouldn’t share our experiences,” Nkwelle said. “But that is actually the beauty of the world. It offers us different kinds of opportunities. It is not a monolithic world. It is a world where we have diversity, and America provides that opportunity.”
