PENTECOSTAL African religious leaders are writing to Garda authorities over officers’ entry to a Dublin church during a recent deportation raid.
Metro Éireann understands that representatives of Joy in the Nation, an umbrella organisation of Pentecostal churches in Ireland, are concerned about an incident on the evening of Wednesday 7 October, when up to six immigration officers entered a north Dublin branch of a popular African-run Christian faith organisation.
According to the church’s pastor – who spoke only on condition that his church wouldn’t be named – a prayer meeting had concluded when a man identifying himself as an immigration garda arrived, followed by around five others.
The pastor was with one other man, who had been attending prayer vigils there. It is believed this man was a failed asylum seeker from Nigeria.
“They took him away,” said the pastor, “and he was deported.”
The pastor said that asylum seekers are now “fearful” to come to the church, and that even some parishioners with legal residency have mixed feelings about attending.
He said people come to the church for “peace of mind” and to “talk to God”, and that while it is located in a business park, signage clearly indicates that it’s a place of worship.
The pastor concluded that if gardaí need to speak with any congregation member, they should “wait outside the gate” as there is only one exit and entrance.
Meanwhile, another pastor, this time in Drogheda, has dismissed “rumours” that a similar incident happened nearly three weeks ago at his own church.
“I don’t know where people got this from, nobody came into the building, nobody,” said pastor Sokan Femi of Mountain of Fire and Miracles church in the Co Louth town.
“They [gardai] were down the road checking vehicles, that’s all that happened. It was nothing to do with the church – the way people carry rumour, they hear one, they say one million.”
No high-profile deportation raids have occurred since March 2005, when immigration gardaí entered schools in Athlone searching for Nigerian-born children to deport with their mothers.
