NPR
By John Burnett
February 9, 2016
U.S.
churches are again defying federal immigration authorities. Across the
country, a handful of congregations are opening their doors to offer
safe haven to Central
American immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally and are under
deportation orders.
The new sanctuary movement echoes an earlier civil disobedience campaign by churches in the 1980s.
The
newest church in America to openly challenge federal immigration laws
is St. Andrew's Presbyterian in Austin, Texas. Ten days ago, the
congregation took in Hilda and
Ivan Ramirez, a Guatemalan mother and her 9-year-old son.
"I'm
really afraid that they'll deport me. That's why I came here," she
says, sipping coffee in the parish hall. "I don't think immigration
agents will break down the
door and take me away. I feel safe here."
The
mother and son's new residence inside the church in a middle-class
suburb in north Austin is a safe gamble. A 2011 memo from U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
states that agents will avoid arresting anyone at churches, schools,
hospitals and public demonstrations — unless the person is a terror
suspect or a dangerous felon.
That
does not describe Hilda Ramirez, a 28-year-old Mayan who says she fled
an abusive father-in-law, violent crime and a bleak economy 19 months
ago.
Last
year, the government denied her and Ivan's asylum requests. Ever since,
she has feared an arrest by ICE agents; they know where she is because
she wears an electronic
ankle monitor.
The
Rev. Jim Rigby, pastor of St. Andrew's, says the church is searching
for a lawyer who will request a stay for the mother and son from the
Board of Immigration Appeals.
No one knows how long that will take.
"We're
trying to make it feel like home as best we can and I think that'll
maybe work for a little while, but at some point it's going to feel like
a jail where a lot
of people like you," Rigby says.
ICE
touched off a furor among immigrant advocates and applause from
immigration hawks early this year when it began rounding up recently
arrived Central Americans who
had fled gang violence but were turned down for asylum.
Rigby
says St. Andrew's is publicizing the case of Hilda Ramirez as a way to
urge the government to back off and review her case.
"We
don't see ourselves so much violating the law as appealing to them to
use their discernment," he says. "To say this is a situation where
sending somebody back to Guatemala
could very well mean their death."
Hilda
Ramirez and her son, Ivan, are staying at a shelter home in Austin.
They fear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will come and
arrest them any minute.
The
new sanctuary movement is having some success. Since the current ICE
crackdown, 11 of 13 immigrants who have sought protection in churches
have gotten stays of deportation
after their cases were made public, reports Church World Service.
It's still a movement with a little "m."
So
far, 12 religious congregations across the country — from Atlanta and
Chicago to Portland and Phoenix — have harbored immigrants. This is a
far cry from the 1980s when
some 500 churches and synagogues declared themselves safe havens for
Salvadorans and Guatemalans escaping civil war and political violence.
Alison
Harrington is minister of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson,
Ariz., one of the founding sanctuary churches. She says their
congregation has resumed sheltering
asylum seekers fleeing federal agents. The last immigrant who sought
refuge in their church stayed there 461 days before her deportation
order was halted.
"And
again churches and congregations across the United States are standing
up to say, this is not reflective of who we believe we are as a people
and this is not reflective
of our faith as Christians," Harrington says.
In
that earlier era, the old Immigration and Naturalization Service came
after activist pastors. The government, for instance, infiltrated
Southside Presbyterian and convicted
its minister, the Rev. John Fife, of "smuggling and harboring illegal
aliens."
These
days, if the government continues its controversial deportation
policies, more churches are ready to step up. Church World Service says
it knows of more than 300
congregations in 30 states eager to support the new sanctuary movement.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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