Lincoln resident to walk the Cape for immigrant justice

Lincoln resident Connor May is hitting the road for the second time on Sunday to raise money and awareness surrounding immigrants who are detained at the Plymouth Correctional Facility (PCF).

May and his friend Chris Tansey of Harwich will start the five-day, 76-mile walk at 8:00am on July 19 at the Pilgrim’s First Landing Park in Provincetown and finish at the Old Colony YMCA in  Plymouth on Friday, July 24. The pair chose this year’s end point because PCF has a history of mistreating detainees and is the only detention facility on the state that contracts with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), May said.

A 2024 report by the Boston University School of Law’s Immigrants’ Rights and Human Trafficking Program and the Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts documented years of mistreatment of inmates at PCF, and detained immigrants are now mixed in with the criminal population even though the vast majority have not been charged with a crime.

In 2019, the two men did something similar, walking from Boston to the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Stockbridge to draw attention to the plight of immigrant families being separated at the border with Mexico.

“We were a lot less organized then. We just said ‘OK, let’s put a sign on our back and start walking’,” said May, who carried a cross over his shoulder during the walk that people signed with their personal prayers. “We met a lot of amazing people who just wanted to show support and gratitude for what we were doing. We didn’t know what to expect, but it was profound at times.” The men were sleeping by the side of a road in a tent, but people they encountered offered them water, food, and even overnight shelter. 

This time around, May and Tansey have accommodations lined up, and they’ve created a GoFundMe page to accept donations that will go directly to the Boston Immigrant Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN) and its Beyond Bond and Legal Defense Fund to provide legal resources to the immigrants detained at PCF. They welcome others to join them on the walk (donors can message them via a link on the GoFundMe page).

May, 33, grew up on the North Shore and has lived in Lincoln with his wife (and soon-to-be-born child) since 2023. He went to college at Holy Cross and has a master’s degree in theology studies from Boston College. He and Tansey met through a Jesuit Volunteer Core program and bonded over their shared interest in studying theology at B.C.

Although raised Catholic, May identifies as simply Christian because “there are certain teachings in the church I just don’t align with” regarding sexuality and abortion. He now teaches classes in ethics and social justice at Boston College High School in Dorchester and attends a Unitarian Universalist church in Boston.

The walk creates an example for his students, teaching them that “it’s not all theory — there are real-world consequences that require real-world action,” May said. “This is a tangible way to  put my beliefs into practice.”