A church can offer sanctuary, but not in a legal way
Today’s question:
After reading the article about the 30-year-old foreign national staying at a church to avoid ICE I’ve been wondering: Are you safer in a church vs. just going home? I mean the police sometimes arrest people at a wedding inside a church. Is there is some federal law or rule that makes this a church a safe haven.
No. Technically, you claiming sanctuary from the law in a church is about as useful as claiming sanctuary in a Denny’s.
Claiming sanctuary in a church or temple or shrine or some other holy place is a very old idea that runs through various cultures. The word itself — sanctuary — means a holy place.
In the medieval Catholic church a person facing prosecution could show up on the church doorstep to formally request it. Sometimes the rules required placing one hand on the altar or on a sanctuary cross. Assuming sanctuary was granted, the wanted person then had 30 to 40 days to decide whether he or she would surrender to authorities and face trial or plead guilty.
I guess the idea was the wanted person was hoping the whole thing would blow over and the authorities would lose interest.
The practice faded in the 17th century. In the United States today there is no legal protection gained from holing up in a church or other house of worship. So why do it?
Because from a point of public image, the idea of police or ICE officers dragging some poor immigrant family out of a church while the pastor and congregation stand by singing hymns or chaining themselves to the doors or whatever just doesn’t look good.
According to Church World Service, since President Donald Trump’s election, about 800 U.S. churches have expressed willing to offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants.
Have a question for Clay? Reach him at 602-444-8612 or clay.thompson@arizonarepublic.com