Robles’ fate is uncertain. The pastor, Joanne Engquist, said efforts would continue to get him a U-visa that would enable him to avoid deportation.
Of course, we are deeply disappointed in the outcome,” Engquist said. “What keeps us going is hope for justice.”
At the Church of the Epiphany in Los Angeles, Father Tom Carey says housing people in the sanctuary is an “option of last resort.”
Carey is a member of an organization called Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, or CLUE, which advocates for low-income families and immigrants. Ahead of the announced raids, eight Christian congregations publicly offered their buildings as sanctuaries through the organization.
“According to the parable that Jesus told, our neighbors are not the people we know. Our neighbors are the people we don’t know who are in trouble,” Carey said. “And the commandment is to love your neighbor.”
Carey’s church also connects immigrants needing legal help with an immigration lawyer who works pro bono. Of his 70 or so congregants, Carey estimates a third are in the U.S. illegally.
Pastor Robert Stearns at Living Water International Apostolic Ministries in Houston has also said his church can be a sanctuary, but his offer comes with caveats.
“The only people who will be allowed in are those who want to participate in becoming American citizens,” Stearns said.
Stearns opened his small church as a sanctuary at the request of his representative, Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee. If a person in the U.S. illegally approached him, he said they’d find shelter at the church but they would also have to meet with lawyers or with Jackson Lee’s staff.
He believes it would be hypocritical to preach against doing wrong and then aid someone trying to break the law.
“We’re not going to throw you to the wolves. What we’re going to do is set the attorneys in place for you if you’re willing to go through that process,” he said. “If you don’t want to do that, there’s nothing I can do for you.”
In Chicago, the diocese’s Catholic Charities has seen a noticeable decline in the number of people taking advantage of its social aid programs, spokeswoman Brigid Murphy said.
On an agency-wide call Wednesday, concerned staff soberly discussed the downtick in mothers at its Women, Infants and Children Food and Nutrition Centers and identified ways the human services arm of the diocese can help.
Murphy said the organization will try to provide more remote assistance for people afraid to leave their homes. They’ll work to educate about immigrants’ rights and provide as much legal assistance as can be discussed over the phone.
In some ways, however, they’re stymied: food can’t be distributed by phone.
“Depending on how long this environment continues, we’ll be looking at the best ways to serve people in need while staying within the bounds of the law,” Murphy said. “But I don’t know that we’ve come up with an answer to that yet.”
Utah’s dominant religious denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, doesn’t offer sanctuary to immigrants, but it tries to stake out a compassionate stance on immigration and said last year it was “deeply troubled” by the family separations at the border.
The religion allows local lay leaders to provide “life-sustaining” help to church members regardless of immigration status, while encouraging people to get legal help to resolve their immigration situation, said church spokesman Eric Hawkins.
Members of the faith, widely known as the Mormon church, account for a large portion of the volunteers who help immigrant and refugee resettlement programs run by Catholic Community Services of Utah.
Said spokeswoman Danielle Stamos, “They’re help is really critical to what we do.”
by Hannah Grabenstein and David Crary, AP/Religion News Service
