Congregations to Give Haven to Immigrants

By JAMES BARRON
The New York Times

Recalling a movement that challenged United States policy in Central America in the 1980s, several religious congregations in New York and other cities will announce a campaign Wednesday to provide sanctuary to illegal immigrants who face deportation.

As of Tuesday, the organizers of what is being called the New Sanctuary Movement said that five churches in New York City had already offered assistance to two families — one from China and one from Haiti — and would provide them with shelter if the federal government moved to enforce the deportation orders filed against them.

“We’re launching now because we’re fed up with detentions, deportations and raids,” said the Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper, the senior minister of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. “We felt it was not morally possible to remain silent.”

Dr. Schaper and a half-dozen other religious leaders are scheduled to gather this morning at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, a Roman Catholic parish at 405 West 59th Street, near Columbus Avenue, to announce their participation in the campaign.

Other announcements about the New Sanctuary Movement are scheduled in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego and Seattle, and the organizers said that prayer vigils supporting the effort would be held in other cities.

The campaign comes as Congress and the Bush administration wrangle over immigration reform. President Bush and many Democrats have called for a path to legalize some 12 million illegal immigrants, but a significant number of Republicans in Congress advocate a broader campaign of deportations.

“We don’t expect any easy answers, but we believe the moral issues have to be lifted up,” said the Rev. David Rommerein, the pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brooklyn, which has been debating how it can help the campaign.

Juan Carlos Ruiz, one of three national coordinators of the New Sanctuary Movement, said one inspiration for the project was the case of Elvira Arellano, a Mexican woman who came to the United States illegally in the 1990s and who has been living under sanctuary at a Chicago church since August.

In New York, three Lutheran churches in Brooklyn have been looking after one immigrant family, while Judson Memorial and the Riverside Church in Manhattan have been monitoring the deportation case involving another, organizers said.

A sanctuary movement news release said one of the families is headed by Joe Liang, 26, and his wife, Mei Xing, 25, who have two children — one 15 months old, the other 2 months old — who were born here.

Mr. Liang, who buses tables at a Manhattan restaurant, said yesterday that he came to the United States from China 10 years ago, seeking asylum. “We lost our case,” he said. “That’s why we have a deportation order. Many people in our situation, even our caseworker, says the system is not right. Thank God we have the church leaders who are willing to help us out.”

The second family lives in Brooklyn, the organizers said. The husband, who would identify himself only as Jean, 38, fled Haiti in 1986. He had a green card but was ordered to be deported because of a drug conviction.

Dr. Schaper, of Judson Memorial Church, said the movement organizers were motivated by an increase in detentions and deportations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials recently reported that they removed 221,664 illegal immigrants over the last year, an increase of more than 37,000 over the year before.

“The increase is less the problem than the actual fact of it,” Dr. Schaper said. “We felt, why is anybody being detained or deported?”

It was not immediately clear whether the government would send agents into churches that harbor immigrants or what legal standing they would have to do so.

“We certainly understand, as does everybody, that nobody is above the law and that removal orders are issued by a federal judge, and they are something that should be complied with,” Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview.

Religious leaders say the notion of providing sanctuary is rooted in American tradition. Churches provided sanctuary to help blacks escape slavery and draftees avoid serving in the Vietnam War.

But in the 1980s, when churches were involved in efforts to resettle Central Americans fleeing civil wars, the federal government said the church-as-sanctuary tradition had no standing in American law. Eight church workers were eventually convicted of criminal conspiracy.

This piece can also be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/nyregion/09sanctuary.html?ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print