At the 225th General Assembly (2022), the assembly overwhelmingly approved IMM-06 “On Declaring the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to be a Sanctuary and Accompaniment Church.” This overture built upon the long history of Presbyterians speaking out and supporting immigrants and refugees, often despite political pressure and even in the face of possible prosecution.
We support comprehensive immigration reform and the Dream Act. We called on the first Trump administration to stop the separation of families in 2018. We reaffirmed the ministry of sanctuary by congregations in 2016. Even now, there are congregations that are providing sanctuary to immigrants and refugees who are vulnerable to arrest and deportation, and considering this administration’s hostility toward immigrants, they do so at considerable risk.
The modern sanctuary movement began in the 1980s when the U.S. administration was supporting several dictatorships in Central America that were violating human rights on a grand scale, such as the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador by U.S.-trained soldiers. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration refused to recognize refugees from those wars as worthy of asylum. And when individuals were returned to their country of origin against their will, they were often murdered.
James Corbett, a Quaker, and the Rev. John Fife, pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, began to collaborate on how they could prevent these refugees from being sent back to an almost certain death. They began the modern equivalent of an underground railroad that shuttled refugees to churches, synagogues and student groups around the country where they were housed in basements, fellowship halls, seminaries and even sometimes in sanctuaries. At the height of this effort, it is estimated there were as many as 500 locations that participated. Outside his church, Fife hung two banners that read: “This is a Sanctuary for the Oppressed of Central America,” and “Immigration: do not profane the Sanctuary of God.”
Sanctuaries are not only sacred spaces; they also have the implied meaning of a safe place, a place of refuge. In this country, there is a decades-old tradition of limiting immigration enforcement in safe spaces such as schools, hospitals and churches. Under each presidential administration, the definition of sensitive locations and the directives given to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers shift. For instance, President Biden expanded the definition of what constitutes “protected areas” and imposed limits on ICE officer discretion, while the Trump administration directs ICE officers to make “case-by-case” decisions with little approval needed to enter sensitive locations, such as churches.
Sheriff, judge, jury and executioner
The Trump administration is going after immigrants who have spoken out in an op-ed or in protest, as well as refugees like Afghans who fled the Taliban and now risk losing their Temporary Protected Status (TPS). These people, including students and others escaping violence and abuse in their home countries, are being arrested, sometimes violently, and taken away without a fair legal process. Some are even sent to detention or deported without warning. These are our neighbors.
If habeas corpus and due process don’t exist for our immigrant neighbors, then those rights won’t be available for us when we need them. But even without the incentive of self-interest, we should be concerned because we are all God’s children.
We don’t know all their names because the Trump administration refuses to provide a full accounting of all the people they have arrested and detained. However, we do know a few of them such as Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student who was arrested in front of his pregnant wife; Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University Ph.D. student and Fulbright scholar, was abducted by masked men off the street; and Andry Hernández Romero, the gay makeup artist who has been accused of affiliation with the Tren de Aragua gang without evidence. And then there is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the administration admits was illegally rendered to El Salvador by mistake, but so far still resists any effort to correct that mistake. This administration has assumed the role of sheriff, judge, jury and executioner.
Many of us who do not personally know immigrants may feel that this is beyond our concern or control. We place our trust in the systems supporting our country. Surely there are laws to protect those who need to be protected. And surely those laws are rightly applied. But the poem by pastor Martin Niemöller of 1930s Germany is a cautionary tale:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
If habeas corpus and due process don’t exist for our immigrant neighbors, then those rights won’t be available for us when we need them. But even without the incentive of self-interest, we should be concerned because we are all God’s children.
There are no fewer than 22 verses enjoining us to welcome the stranger and alien among us. Romans 12:13 reads, “Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” The Greek word for “stranger” here is xenos, the root word for xenophobia. Similarly, the Greek word for “hospitality” is philoxenia or love of the stranger. In other words, there can be no hospitality without love of the stranger, love of the other, love of those who are different from us.
Good trouble
It’s human nature to avoid rancor and conflict. However, there are times when conflict is necessary. Where would we be without the likes of Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, and John Lewis encouraging us to get in some good trouble? In his book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Yale University History Professor Timothy Snyder says that we must resist tyranny by standing out because when the spell of the status quo is broken, others will follow.
One of the provisions of the declaration of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to be a “Sanctuary and Accompaniment Church” is to encourage our mid councils and congregations to also consider declaring themselves places of “Sanctuary and Accompaniment.” There are at least three reasons we should consider such actions in our presbyteries and congregations.
There are times when conflict is necessary.
First, more than 47.8 million non-citizens live in America. These people are nurses, doctors, groundskeepers, students, scientists, laborers, and even pastors. We depend on these neighbors and professionals more than we realize. There are likely tens of thousands of non-citizen Presbyterians who are attending our churches on any given Sunday morning without us even realizing it. Many Presbyterians have the unique privilege of knowing that we will not be deported, even if we protest. We can use this power to let our non-citizen friends and neighbors know that we stand with them in love.
Second, there is safety in numbers. If there are scores of presbyteries and churches who declare themselves to be sanctuaries for the sake of refugees, then it is much more difficult for the government to know where to begin. And if even more churches and presbyteries come to the aid of those that the government would seek to persecute, then their task becomes even more difficult.
Third, beginning a conversation in our presbyteries and congregations about sanctuary and accompaniment allows us to live into God’s call to welcome the stranger. Presbyteries and churches can, in the words of the PC(USA) 2022 overture, consider declaring themselves to be “Sanctuary and Accompaniment” entities “while taking into consideration local contexts, capacity, and the results of congregational discernment.”
Let us act in love; let us get in some good trouble.
Whatever we may choose, let’s remember that our faith requires action that is commensurate with the challenges before us and on behalf of those who are suffering under the yoke of lawless abduction, rendition and imprisonment. May Christ’s words ring in our ears this Easter season: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Let us act in love; let us get in some good trouble.
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