At five claiming sanctuary, Colo. home to most in U.S.
1 in 6 living in houses of worship to avoid deportation are in state
On Mother’s Day, Sandra Lopez was one of a handful of immigrant leaders who spoke at a prayer vigil in Carbondale where Two Rivers Unitarian Universalist announced it was becoming a sanctuary congregation. The mother of three told the crowd that because she was living in the U.S. illegally, she might one day need to claim sanctuary here herself.
Although she said it at the vigil, “I never imagined that I would be the one,” Lopez said through an interpreter from Two Rivers, where she claimed sanctuary Thursday, after she learned her latest request for a stay of removal had been denied. Lopez is a 42-year-old Mexican national, lives in Silt, has no criminal convictions and has been in the country since 1998. All three of her children are U.S. citizens, including the baby, Areli, who could be heard fussing on the other end of the line during a phone call Tuesday. Areli, who is staying at Two Rivers with her mother, will be 2 next month.
Lopez became the fifth person taking sanctuary in a Colorado church or temple to escape deportation. Her case pushes the state to the top of the ranks nationally: No other state has as many people living in a church or temple to avoid deportation. One in every six people in sanctuary in the United States is in Colorado.
Although the numbers fluctuate daily, 31 people as of Monday night were living in sanctuary with a faithbased congregation around the country, according to information from Church World Service, which provides national organizing for the sanctuary movement.
New Mexico, North Carolina, Illinois and Massachusetts each have three people living in sanctuary, and four people are in sanctuary in Arizona, all in Phoenix. Colorado congregations in Mancos, Colorado Springs, Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood, Fort Collins and now Carbondale have sanctuary seekers living in their house of worship’s basement, religious-education room, former nursery or pastor’s office. It’s a less-than-ideal arrangement that breaks apart families. But they’re not as separated as they would be if they were deported, those living in sanctuary say.
There’s no single reason Colorado has more sanctuary cases than other states, said the Rev. Noel Andersen of Church World Service. It’s a combination of factors. One is the number of immigrants here, but also “You have a lot of good organizers there,” said Andersen, who is based in Washington, D.C. “I think a lot of it is about the word getting out that sanctuary is an option.”
Jennifer Piper of the American Friends Service Committee, a coordinator for the Metro Denver Sanctuary Coalition, agreed. “We have a state with a strong immigrant-rights coalition, where there’s a lot of organizing, and ways for people to get connected,” she said. “They have a documentabuses hotline people can call as they’re in the process of deportation, there’s the rapid-response network. So there’s a fast way for people to connect.”
Sophia Clark, who works on Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition‘s hotline (844-864-8341), noted that four of the five people living in sanctuary have called the hotline, which CIRC began in 2012 and lets people document encounters with law enforcement that may be used in their immigration cases.
But it’s not just the power of the immigrant-rights movement, which has been strong in Colorado since 2002, when CIRC formed, Piper said. “Then you have over the last 10 years a very strong — and a very interfaith — effort to dive into this issue. You don’t see that in a lot of other states — both of those things.” What’s more, she said, groups such as CIRC, Together Colorado, sanctuary coalitions, Interfaith Alliance and other groups that work on immigrant rights issues tend to be collaborative.
Last year, before the election, about 400 faith groups around the country declared themselves sanctuary congregations. Since then, that has doubled to more than 800. The movement’s roots are in the 1980s, when churches in Arizona, then elsewhere, sought to help migrants fleeing war in Central America. The current movement, or “new” sanctuary movement, began when faith groups fought to keep together families torn apart by deportations in the Obama era.
Lopez was an immigrant leader in the Roaring Fork Valley before going into sanctuary last week. She got involved in immigrant rights after she was arrested in 2012 when one of her children made a 911 call and hung up. “I was already in the deportation system, and my husband wanted to find some kind of support for me. So he called the hotline, and it was then that I made the choice to affiliate with CIRC and start my own group locally,” Colorado SOUL, which stands for Solidaridad Unión Organización y Lucha, she said.
Kristin Kumpf, director of human migration and movement for the global division of the American Friends Service Committee, said having people in sanctuary is a sign of the state of the state.
“I think sanctuary is most prevalent in states where sanctuary is deeply needed,” she said. “Sanctuary looks different in California and New York. Communities are able to find ways to protect people without them having to go into sanctuary.”
Remember, she said: “The goal is never sanctuary — sanctuary happens because that is the only option for that person.”
Kumpf also noted that local immigrant leaders who have lived in sanctuary can give other people facing deportation the confidence that waiting for a legal solution cooped up in a church, away from their families, can be worth it.
“Jeanette (Vizguerra), Ingrid (Encalada Latorre) — both are clearly leaders in Colorado, and nationally,” she said. “Their stories and their presence has made an impact in immigrant communities, so they know they can fight for their families.”