Mexico native remains in Columbus church ‘sanctuary’
Mom of 3 living at church since Oct. to avoid deportation.
Edith Espinal COLUMBUS — cooked and served her traditional Mexican Christmas meal to her family this year from a church kitchen rather than her home on the West Side.
She’s a good cook, and the pork pozole and the lamb barbacoa were as delicious as ever. The Christmas church service was beautiful, and opening the presents from her children, including tennis shoes, a blouse and a jacket, was fun.
But this was a different and difficult Christmas for Espinal, a 40-year-old-mother of three originally from Mexico who has been in sanctuary at Columbus Mennonite Church since Oct. 2. Espinal entered the church, which Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials consider a “sensitive location” that they probably won’t enter, after she was ordered deported on Sept. 25. The federal government has determined she is in this country illegally.
There she has stayed, inside the church and wearing an ICE-issued ankle bracelet while she fights to remain in this country. Her husband, Manuel Gonzalez, 42, and son Brandow Gonzalez, 19, also potentially face deportation, although their cases are not as far along as hers. Daughter Stephanie Gonzalez, 16, and son Isidro Espinal, 21, are U.S. citizens.
Born in Michoacan, Mexico, Espinal has been in and out of America since she was 17. She first came to Columbus with her father in 1995, and she has been here most of the time since. She sold beauty, bath and home products to family members and friends.
Now, she spends her days in sanctuary inside the church. She is taking guitar and piano lessons from a couple of church members, and she is learning to knit. She sings in the church choir and exercises daily by running up and down the stairs. Her husband and daughter stay with her at night in her living quarters in a converted Sunday-school classroom on the second floor of the North Side church.
She cannot go out, so her relatives come to her. Her sister and brother-in-law and their two girls shared Christmas Eve dinner with her. “I felt happy,” Espinal said.
But being in sanctuary for months now has been hard, she said. Especially at Christmas.
“I feel very different, more sad,” Espinal said. “I can’t go out to the store to buy the stuff to prepare the food. I can’t go to the store to buy the presents for my kids. I need to stay here, waiting to go back to my home. I don’t want to be deported. My family is here, my kids are here.
“Sometimes I just feel alone.”
Espinal is seeking a stay of removal; her 21-year-old son has petitioned for her to be granted legal residency, said immigration activist Ruben Castilla Herrera, who helped translate for Espinal and her husband on Monday.
Her daughter, who is a junior at South-Western Career Academy in Grove City, said she leaves for school every morning with a feeling of dread and worry, wondering if her mother will still be at the church at the end of the school day.
“Each time I feel like I will get a call — ‘ICE came, they took her.’ That is my fear every morning. I don’t think I’m ready for that,” Stephanie said. “I just can’t wait to get home and have her there. I just hope they let her stay.”
This Christmas, Espinal’s husband said a prayer. “I prayed that our family stays united,” he said. “That’s what I’ve always prayed for.”