[migrawatch-public] The new Sanctuary Movement

http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-1/632/632_05_Sanctuary.shtml

The fight against deportations
The new sanctuary movement
May 18, 2007 | Page 5

LEE SUSTAR reports on an initiative to protect the
undocumented against ICE raids and deportations.

A NEW faith-based movement to "awaken the moral
imagination of the country" hopes to provide sanctuary for
undocumented immigrants whose deportation would break up
families.

Calling themselves the New Sanctuary Movement (NSM)--a nod
to the 1980s effort to assist refugees from Central
America fleeing the carnage of U.S.-sponsored
wars--churches and religious activist groups held press
conferences around the U.S. May 9 to announce plans "to
protect immigrant workers and families from unjust
deportation" by giving shelter and material aid to the
undocumented.

The initiative comes in the wake of efforts by immigrant
rights activists to pressure local governments for
sanctuary city policies of non-cooperation with federal
immigration enforcement.

On May 8, Watsonville, Calif., became the latest city to
declare itself an immigrant sanctuary. In other cities
like Chicago, San Francisco and Oakland, activists have
pressed city officials to reaffirm existing policies of
refusing to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

A key inspiration for the NSM organizers is the struggle
of Elvira Arellano, a Mexican immigrant who last year made
international headlines for publicly defying a deportation
order that would separate her from her U.S.-born son,
8-year-old Saúl.

Arellano last year moved into Adalberto United Methodist
Church in Chicago, and religious leaders and activists
from around the city came to express their support.
International media covered the story, and solidarity
messages poured into Adalberto from around the world.

"We're all inspired by the example of Adalberto United
Methodist Church, of Elivra and her family, and the
courage of that congregation," said Kim Bobo, executive
director of the Interfaith Worker Justice in Chicago, a
key organizer in the NSM.

Since Arellano took her stand, the threat of detentions
and deportations that break up immigrant families has
become more urgent as the Bureau of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) steps ups its raids.

The detention of a nursing mother after a raid on a
factory in New Bedford, Mass., in March, put the issue of
immigrant family unity back into the national media
spotlight. By holding coordinated press conferences, the
NSM aims to keep it there.

"Families are being broken by a broken immigration
system," Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, of the Los Angeles-based
Clergy and Laity United For Economic Justice, said in a
statement. "Under current policies, detention and
deportation are ripping apart parents from children,
husbands from wives and sisters from brothers. Through our
sanctuaries, we can help change the laws to create
policies that are effective and humane."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE CALL to join the movement was made by groups
affiliated with a range of Protestant denominations, the
Catholic Church, and Muslim and Sikh organizations.
To participate, individual places of worship must pledge
to host immigrant families in which a family member is
facing an order of deportation. According to a document
posted to the NSM Web site, eligible immigrant families
are those with adults with a "good work record," a "viable
case under current law," and "American citizen children."

Bobo points out that NSM participants are free to support
other undocumented immigrants who don't meet all the
criteria. The framework was agreed upon by a broad
coalition; others are prepared to go further in providing
assistance to the undocumented, she said.

And while the movement hasn't taken a formal position on
proposed immigration reform legislation, most are critical
of current proposals. Interfaith Worker Justice, she said,
opposes the enforcement provisions being discussed in
Congress--"and the proposals on the table would establish
a very large guest-worker program, which have been proven
to be detrimental to workers."

While the outcome of the legislative debate is uncertain,
ICE raids are sure to escalate, and the NSM is preparing
for the consequences--an increase in attempted
deportations.

The NSM, based on a brief from the Center for
Constitutional Rights, takes the position that its
sanctuary efforts don't violate the law, since they are
being offered publicly and, as in the case of Elvira
Arellano's vigil, there will be no effort to hide the
immigrants' whereabouts from ICE officials.

While Bobo doesn't believe laws will be broken, "ICE may
take a different point of view," she said.

Once faith communities agree to host a family, they will
be asked to provide material aid in a variety of ways,
starting with "legal triage"--help, including financial
assistance, in the most urgent cases.

Families will be hosted for up to three months, and hosts
agree to provide assistance in various ways--including
meals and transportation to and from work or school. In
addition, the faith communities agree to directly support
the NSM itself through fundraising or donations of food,
clothing and other goods.

NSM participants are also asked to support immigrant
workers against the racist backlash. "The immigration
reform agenda is just inseparable from worker justice at
this moment in our history," Bobo said. "The absolute
worst abuse of workers that we see around the country is
the abuse of immigrant workers, because they have no path
to citizenship, and there's no strong protection of
workers' rights for immigrant workers."

An NSM statement spells out the operational conclusion:
"Despite society's ongoing desire for the services of day
laborers and immigrant domestics, the climate of racism
and harassment has reached a fever pitch. Faith
communities are called to offer support through: being
publicly present at existing day labor pick-up sites as a
peaceful presence in the face of racist and hateful
demonstrators; serving as an alternative labor/employer
match site; and/or being advocates for worker issues."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THIS PLEDGE to defy the federal government and right-wing
groups recalls the original sanctuary movement of the
1980s, when a coalition of some 500 churches and religious
organizations helped refugees from Central America fleeing
from death squads and counterrevolutionary forces aligned
with the U.S. government.
That movement--in which activists helped refugees cross
the border and live underground in the U.S.--was the
target of repeated high-profile prosecutions by federal
authorities. All failed but one: the conviction of the
movement's co-founder, Rev. John Fife of Tucson, Ariz.,
along with five others, including a Catholic priest and a
nun, who were convicted on felony charges and given five
years' probation.

In a 1986 trial of sanctuary activists in Arizona, it
emerged that two sanctuary volunteers were actually
undercover agents of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service--the forerunner of ICE--who drove a family of five
refugees from El Salvador on a trip from Phoenix to
Albuquerque, N.M., as they carried out a public speaking
tour for the movement. This was part of the INS's
Operation Sojourner, an effort to infiltrate the movement.

But sanctuary activists had expected as much. "We intend
to make it as widely known as possible that we are in
violation of the law, an immoral and illegal law," Fife
told the Tucson Citizen in 1982.

Today, Fife, now retired as a pastor, is still active in
support of immigrants. He's a founder of the group No More
Deaths, which provides water, food and assistance to
undocumented immigrants crossing the border, often in
defiance of the Border Patrol and right-wing vigilantes
like the Minutemen.

Two student activists in the group, Shanti Sellz and
Daniel Strauss, were arrested in 2005 for taking three
undocumented immigrants to receive medical care, although
charges were eventually dropped.

"These efforts are not only humanitarian aid efforts,
they're communities of resistance to the kind of
violations of human rights the government policy is
involved in," Fife said in a recent interview with Amy
Goodman on the Democracy Now! radio/TV program.

"And active resistance involves direct aid to the victims.
It also involves speaking out and trying to get...border
enforcement policy changed so that we're no longer
involved in massive violations of human rights and all
that death and suffering."

The Interfaith Committee's Bobo said that she expects the
NSM's organizing to dovetail with efforts to implement
sanctuary city policies, pointing to the organizing work
to get the Washington, D.C., City Council to pass
legislation strengthening the city's stand.

The sanctuary movement, moreover, provides a counterweight
to the spate of anti-immigration legislation at the state
and local level--most recently, the law passed in a
referendum in the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch, which
seeks to prevent landlords from renting housing to
undocumented immigrants.

By going national and highlighting the sanctuary work
already taking place at the local level, the movement aims
to alter the terms of debate over immigration, its leaders
said. "Through our sanctuaries," said Rev. Salvatierra of
Los Angeles, "we can help change the laws to create
policies that are effective and humane."

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