New Sanctuary Movement to shelter illegal immigrants

[Sierra]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...tuary0510.html

Churches in five big U.S. cities plan to protect illegal immigrants from deportation, offering their buildings as sanctuary if need be, as they pressure lawmakers to create a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

On Wednesday, a Catholic church in Los Angeles and a Lutheran church in North Hollywood each sheltered one person, and churches in other cities plan to do so in coming months as part of the "New Sanctuary Movement."

"We want to put a human face to very complex immigration laws and awaken the consciousness of the human spirit," said Father Richard Estrada of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Los Angeles.

Organizers said churches in more than 50 cities nationwide were planning to join the sanctuary effort. They don't believe immigration agents will make arrests inside the churches.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has not tried to arrest Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant who has taken shelter at a Methodist church in Chicago since August.

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice declined to say whether agents would attempt to arrest others who take sanctuary in churches, although she noted agents had the authority to arrest anyone violating immigration law.

Anti-illegal-immigration groups called the sanctuary effort misguided.

The faith groups "don't seem to realize that they are being charitable with someone else's resources, and that's not charity," said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors limits on immigration.

"We are talking about illegal immigrants taking someone else's job, filling up the classroom of someone else's child," he said.

The sanctuary effort is loosely based on a movement in the 1980s, when churches harbored Central American refugees fleeing wars in their home countries. Organizers of the current movement include members of the Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and other faiths.

Participating churches in San Diego, Seattle, Chicago and New York won't initially house illegal immigrants. Instead, leaders will provide legal counsel, accompany them to court hearings and prepare plans to house them in churches if authorities try to deport them.

The plans come as immigration-reform legislation has been stalled since last summer, and tens of thousands of illegal immigrants have been detained and deported in stepped-up immigration raids recently.

At Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church on Wednesday, more than 30 priests, pastors, imams and rabbis blessed two illegal immigrants.

A Mexican man will be sheltered at the church, and another from Guatemala will be housed at San Pablo's Lutheran Church in North Hollywood.

The Guatemalan, a gardener who only gave his first name as Juan, said he worried about what might happen to his young daughters if he were deported. Both girls are U.S. citizens because they were born in the U.S.

"I want to ask the politicians to see the suffering of the immigrant families," he said.

Last I checked, churches are not considered foreign territory and can quit easily be raided.

[Stan Switek]

Removed the churches tax exempt status & see what their position is then.

[Valor55]

Removed the churches tax exempt status & see what their position is then.

I would support that.

[mxwelch]

Removed the churches tax exempt status & see what their position is then.

+2. They think that the laws don't hold sway inside their building, they're wrong. The only time this would ever be true is if the government did something to supress their religion such as making a law banning prayer or something extreme like it. This ain't it.

[LA5150]

Well, I'd love to see them fit all 12+ million inside their churches. It would be like the Holy Housing Projects or something. :D

Then that way the church could provide all their medical, financial, and housing needs instead of the tax payers.

[Citicop]

I see your churches and raise you the ENTIRE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO:

Mayor Gavin Newsom vowed Sunday to maintain San Francisco as a sanctuary for immigrants and do everything he can to discourage federal authorities from conducting immigration raids.

The mayor cannot stop federal authorities from making arrests, Newsom told about 300 mostly Latino members of St. Peter's Church and other religious groups supporting immigrants. But no San Francisco employee will help with immigration enforcement.

"I will not allow any of my department heads or anyone associated with this city to cooperate in any way shape or form with these raids," Newsom declared. "We are a sanctuary city, make no mistake about it."

The Board of Supervisors first declared San Francisco a "sanctuary city" in 1989. The designation, which many U.S. cities across the country took on during the 1980s, has no legal meaning.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have since May 2006 conducted raids across the country, including arrests in San Rafael, Oakland, Richmond, San Pablo, Santa Clara and other cities across the Bay area. Immigration officials have said they were executing arrest warrants for immigrants who had committed crimes or were in the country illegally and had ignored final deportation orders.

In the course of serving deportation warrants, the officials said, other people whom officers suspected of being illegal immigrants were questioned and then arrested. Of at least 65 Marin County residents arrested in March, for example, just five had been ordered deported.

The raids, many of which conducted at private homes before dawn and some of which caught up legal immigrants and even citizens, have created an uproar in the Bay Area. Politicians and community leaders have demanded they end, saying some immigrants parents are now afraid to send their children to school or leave home.

Immigration agents on Friday arrested 13 foreign nationals who were working illegally at Eagle Bag Corp. in Oakland, a packaging manufacturer whose clients include the U.S. military. The arrests there of immigrants suspected of using counterfeit documents to obtain jobs were not related to the recent raids.

San Rafael Mayor Al Boro in March called on California's U.S. senators, Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, to push the immigration agency to change how it is enforcing immigration law because he believed children were the ones being hurt.

Marches and rallies are planned in coming weeks in Redwood City, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento and other cities.

Porfirio Quintano was one of those who pleaded with Newsom, Senator Carole Migden and Assemblyman Mark Leno during Sunday's meeting to do what they can to make San Francisco safe for immigrants.

The 42-year-old immigrant from Honduras said his Richmond home was raided in 2003 by federal immigration agents based on what turned out to be bad information.

"We are victims," said Quintano, adding that his wife and two daughters, then ages 4 and 10, live in fear of another raid, even though they are in the country legally. "They were looking for somebody unrelated to us, but they lined us up against the wall and held us for an hour. It was terrifying, especially for our daughters."

Newsom, Migden and Leno all vowed to work with other cities and legislators to put a stop to what they said was blatant intimidation of immigrants.

"Our action is to stand strong in opposition to these raids... to make sure that we are not contributing in any way, shape or form," Newsom said. "Even legal immigrants are fearful. This just sends a chill to a lot of people. There are a lot of cities that want these raids. That's where the federal government should be spending their time."

If Washington politicians had any guts at all, they would remove all Federal funding from the city...no roads, no schools, no nothing until they play ball.

But they don't, so they won't...

Citicop.

[Sierra]

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/nabbed-...19205209990001

LOS ANGELES (Aug. 20) - An immigration activist who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid being separated from her son has been deported to Mexico, the church's pastor said.

Elvira Arellano was arrested Sunday afternoon outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Los Angeles. She was deported several hours later, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano had taken refuge.

"She has been deported. She is free and in Tijuana," said Coleman, who said he spoke to her on the phone. "She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."

Messages left with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were not immediately returned.

Arellano, 32, became a symbol of the struggles of illegal immigrant parents when she took refuge in the church to avoid being separated from her 8-year-old son Saul, who was born in the U.S. and is thus a citizen.

She had said Saturday she was not afraid of being taken into custody by immigration agents.

"From the time I took sanctuary the possibility has existed that they arrest me in the place and time they want," she said in Spanish. "I only have two choices. I either go to my country, Mexico, or stay and keep fighting. I decided to stay and fight."

Arellano came to Washington state illegally in 1997. She was deported to Mexico shortly after, but returned and moved to Illinois in 2000, taking a job cleaning planes at O'Hare International Airport.

She was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare and convicted of working under a false Social Security number. She was to surrender to authorities last August.

She sought refuge at the storefront church on Chicago's West Side on Aug. 15, 2006. She had not left the church property until she decided to travel by car to Los Angeles, Coleman said.

Coleman said Arellano, who is staying with a friend in Tijuana, had brought to light her struggle, and for that, "she has won a victory."

"She'll be organizing on the Mexican side of the border while we're organizing in the (United) States," Coleman said Monday. "She'll be talking to organizations throughout Mexico and congressmen in Mexico City."

Coleman said he and other activists will continue Arellano's original plan to go to Washington, D.C. and take part in a prayer meeting and rally for immigration reform at the Capitol on Sept. 12.

Immigration activists responded with anger to her arrest, and promised protests and vigils to support her.

"We are sad, but at the same time we are angry," said Javier Rodriguez, a Chicago immigration activist who worked with Arellano. "How dare they arrest this woman?"

Anti-illegal immigrant groups said the arrest was long overdue.

"Just because the woman has gone public and made an issue of the fact that she is defying law doesn't mean the government doesn't have to do its job," said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors limits on immigration.

Arellano has repeatedly called for a stop to immigration raids that break up families with some members who are in the U.S. legally and others illegally.

Emma Lozano, Coleman's wife and head of immigration rights group Centro Sin Fronteras in Chicago, said she was Saul's legal guardian. At an afternoon press conference in Los Angeles, the boy hid behind Lozano and wiped away tears.

"He's taking it better than we thought he would," Lozano said.

While being arrested, Arellano spoke briefly with her son before submitting to authorities, Lozano said.

"She calmed him down, hugged him and gave him a blessing," said Lozano.

[mobrien316]

I think if various churches want to have all the illegal immigrants in the country live inside their churches, that's fine. As long as the churches provide the criminals they are hiding with food, water, lodging, health care, education, and everything else they need, AND as long as the criminals never, ever set foot off the church property, that would be fine with me.

Of course, if any of the illegal aliens ever set foot off the church's property they would be immediately deported.

And, the church would of course lose their tax-exempt status for harboring criminals (good idea, Stan!).