USA TODAY International Edition
A sanctuary for immigrants
Churches across USA offer a shield for those facing deportation
Awoman from Mexico who entered the USA illegally feared a meeting with immigration officials would end in her deportation. So she skipped it and turned to a place she knew would provide her safe haven — the First Unitarian Society of Denver.
When Jeanette Vizguerra moved into the Colorado church last week, the community activist and mother of three children who are U. S. citizens captured national headlines, shining a spotlight on the growing sanctuary church movement in the midst of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
More than 100 people rallied Saturday in Denver in support of Vizguerra. Standing at the church’s front entrance, she draped herself in an American flag. “I belong here,”
she declared in Spanish as the crowd roared and chanted its support.
Like the Unitarian congregation, other faith communities across the USA have signed on to the growing sanctuary movement, agreeing to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation. The tactic is rooted in religious teachings to care for the vulnerable.
“We forget that many people feel they must act even if they don’t want to or are afraid to,” says Charles Haynes, vice president of the Newseum Institute’s Religious Freedom Center. “They feel that the highest authority in their lives is not the state; it’s not the ICE. It’s their conscience, their God.”
Some churches don’t believe it’s appropriate to go against the federal government. A Tennessee congregation opted not to become a sanctuary. The debate could become more pronounced in the months ahead.
The Department of Homeland Security issued memos Tuesday that put in place President Trump’s increased immigration enforcement plan, making deportation a possibility for the majority of the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Those convicted of crimes are the highest priority, but the memos direct agents to arrest and initiate deportation proceedings for anyone they encounter who is in the country illegally. Those granted deportation protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are not affected.
Leaders with the sanctuary movement said a policy President Obama set in 2011 protects their houses of worship from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. That policy limits ICE actions at “sensitive locations,” including churches, hospitals and schools.
As of Tuesday, the policy was still in place, according to The Arizona Republic.
The idea of providing sanctuary dates back centuries and is referenced in the Old Testament. The modern- day movement in the USA began in the 1980s.
The Rev. Alison Harrington of Tucson’s Southside Presbyterian Church says her congregation was one of the first to offer protection to refugees fleeing civil war in Central America. In the 1980s, the church housed thousands of migrants for short periods before they were resettled across the nation. “It worked more like an underground railroad,” Harrington says.
A national network of sanctuary congregations — including Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian and Jewish congregations — saw a spike in interest after Trump’s election in November, says the Rev. Noel Andersen, grass- roots organizer for Church World Ser- vice. Before Trump’s victory, the network hovered around 400 congregations willing to offer sanctuary, Andersen says. That number jumped to more than 800 in 45 states after the election and continues to rise.
That’s far less than 1% of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research’s estimate of about 350,000 religious congregations in the USA.
“The faith community feels that within our broader communities, our job is to be working with and ministering to vulnerable communities in our midst,” Andersen says.
Though the Nashville First Church of the Nazarene in Tennessee has a recent history of welcoming refugees and immigrants into its congregations, it won’t offer sanctuary, says the Rev. Kevin Ulmet, the church’s senior pastor.
“We would not be comfortable doing so,” he says. “But we would certainly want to continue our feet- on- the- ground ministry to immigrants and refugees.”
Among the concerns of church members are violating federal policy or going against zoning laws that might prohibit someone from living in a church, Ulmet said. Other issues may arise from protecting someone with outstanding arrest warrants or a serious criminal history.
On the other side of Nashville, Edgehill United Methodist Church, a congregation with a 50year history of social work, came to a different conclusion.
The church is putting together a response team in anticipation of increased ICE raids, and mem- bers are preparing to offer resources, including short- term sanctuary for those who need it, says the Rev. John Feldhacker.
“We are really just trying to make sure that our democracy is a democracy and everyone has a voice,” Feldhacker says. “At this point, we’re not saying this is a blatant act of civil disobedience yet. This is just compassion.”
In Ohio, Cincinnati’s sanctuary movement will form a rapid- response team to warn undocumented immigrants if a deportation raid is imminent.
“It’s about a system,” says the Rev. Troy Jackson, director of a multidenominational organization called the Amos Project. “It’s not just about warning people. It’s about showing up to protect people at places where hate speech is occurring.”
Cincinnati’s movement has 17 congregations committed to providing money, food, toiletries and other supplies for those in sanctuary churches. The movement cuts across denominational lines and includes Buddhists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Jews, Muslims, Presbyterians, Quakers and Unitarians.
In Denver, Vizguerra, who fled violence in Mexico, has a criminal record because of a misdemeanor conviction in 2009 for using false documents to get work but no violent offenses. She lives in a converted storage room at the First Unitarian Society, where choir practice and worshipers sometimes disturb her sleep.
“This is a profoundly pastoral issue,” the Rev. Mike Morran says. “These are children who need their mom. I don’t know how you can argue that.”