SANCTUARY
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.”