Rosa Hernandez panicked when she saw several immigration officials standing outside her screen door.

In the Honduran family of six, only Hernandez's husband is in the U.S. legally.

"My heart tore," she said in Spanish to about 60 people gathered recently for a monthly service at Southside Church of the Nazarene in Chesterfield County.

"I broke down crying, and I was trembling," she said into the microphone, sobbing, her eyes staring at the carpet.

For the past six months, Radio Poder, a Spanish Christian radio station in Richmond, has held monthly prayer services at several area churches.

People from various denominations gather to pray for families whose relatives are in the custody of immigration officials and for people who are living in the country illegally and could be arrested and deported.

The services are a response to the federal government's stepped-up crackdown on illegal immigrants at work and residential places. Last year, about 280,500 people were deported, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Immigration agents on Wednesday raided the construction site of the federal courthouse on East Broad Street in downtown Richmond and detained 33 undocumented workers from seven Latin American countries. They are being held for processing and possible deportation.

"This is a problem we have in common, directly or indirectly," said Oscar Contreras, a disc jockey at Radio Poder and member of Iglesia Bautista Montecalvario in Richmond, about the churches that are participating. "It's affecting our neighbors. It's affecting our children."

. . .

In the past two years, Congress came close to passing a bill overhauling the immigration system and granting a path to citizenship to about 12 million undocumented immigrants, but the effort ultimately failed.

Citing a need for comprehensive immigration reform, a growing number of churches across the country are getting involved in the issue. Churches in some cities have gone as far as granting sanctuary to immigrants in their buildings.

Groups such as the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ and the Mennonite Church USA have joined a coalition called Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

"We bring the moral component" to the immigration issue, said John Upton, executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia and the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. "I certainly think we ought to be reaching out in any way we can.

"We would not encourage anyone to do anything illegally, but we would certainly offer assistance to families and persons as they honored the law. Also, many of our churches help those who are in their communities find resources to make legal application for legal status."

. . .

Bob Dane of the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes illegal immigration, said it's fine for churches to be charitable, but in this case they are being generous with other people's resources.

"If they're going to pray, let's pray for those poor elderly, disadvantaged U.S. residents," he said. "It's fundamentally unfair for those who have been here illegally to take jobs and work for lower wages than U.S. residents."

Churches are not above the law, and they are aiding and abetting lawbreakers by reaching out to illegal immigrants, Dane said.

"I think it's counterproductive to solving the immigration issue," he said. "The clear and practical solution is denying benefits, making it difficult to work and taking away incentives for those who come here illegally."

. . .

On April 19, seven Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials came to Hernandez's home. When she saw them, she rushed to call her husband and her pastor.

Immigration officials told a frightened Hernandez to calm down, because they were not there to arrest anybody, she said in an interview after the service. They left an order for her husband to appear in court next month in Arlington County with three of their children. She and the couple's fourth child were not included in the order.

"It was only the powerful hand of God that saved us," she said.

Contact Juan Antonio Lizama at (804) 649-6513 or jlizama@timesdispatch.com.