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Reverend Paiva, in Pico Union: "...This isn't about one or two people coming from another country. It's about power and the actions that create imbalances between countries. It's a part of the call, part of the mission, of the church. You need to be hospitable, welcome the stranger, help people in unjust situations."
Continued:
Gimme Shelter - Part II
The Nation
by SASHA ABRAMSKY
[from the February 25, 2008 issue]
The central questions are whether those fleeing economic destitution have as strong a moral claim, and whether their religious defenders have as valid a reason to do an end run around secular law, as those fleeing the guns and bombs of juntas did a generation ago. It's an arguable point. The religious men and women of the New Sanctuary Movement have concluded there is, indeed, a moral equivalence, one made all the more urgent by the increasingly unpleasant demonization of "illegals" that has occurred in recent years. And having reached a moral conclusion, the congregations have felt compelled to act rather than to sit back and watch events unfold--displaying an admirable willingness to go to bat for their moral beliefs, absorb criticism and come out (verbally) swinging.
Churches in Long Beach and Simi Valley that have offered sanctuary have been picketed by the Minutemen, as well as California-specific groups such as Save Our State, and their pastors routinely receive hate mail and threats of violence. In Simi Valley, a deeply conservative suburb north of Los Angeles, the city council recently billed the United Church of Christ (UCC) nearly $40,000 for police services after anti-sanctuary groups launched a large protest against the church. The rationale? The congregation had brought the protests on themselves by offering sanctuary to an undocumented immigrant, and thus should be liable for all law-enforcement expenses. None of this has deterred the congregations.
"I think there is a higher law," says Frank Johnson, a retired pastor at the UCC church in Simi Valley. The Simi Valley church looks like a huge, cream-colored stucco McMansion, an utterly functional building on a wide back street, the surrounding hilly landscape a strange mixture of end-of-the-earth shards of desert rock and lush irrigated gardens. In a building just up the hill from the main church, 29-year-old Liliana "Santuario" is living with her infant son, Pablito. They moved from their home in the agricultural town of Oxnard into sanctuary last May, first to a church in Long Beach, then up north to Simi Valley--fleeing an ICE deportation order that would send Liliana to Mexico, from where she migrated close to a decade ago. If deported she would leave behind her three children and her husband (all US citizens).
"As persons of faith," continues the white-haired, mustached Johnson, "we believe God seeks justice for the people. Whereas in most circumstances we believe it's important to obey the law, there are occasions such as the civil rights movement and people shielding Jews from the Holocaust--all of those things are illustrations of the fact there is a law of love that trumps some laws that exist on the books, if there is injustice. That's why we're doing this."
The UCC people clearly believe their ward can become the new Arellano, and that doesn't necessarily make for the best interactions with the media. Liliana, a beautiful young woman, is always surrounded by handlers. She claims to be keeping a diary, in English, designed to help her learn the language, but the diary, which her handlers urge her to read to me, has clearly been written by a publicist.
"This is a country of opportunity," she reads aloud, her handler correcting her pronunciation. "But where is the love and compassion? When I think of the United States, I think of the Statue of Liberty. Give us your poor and free and huddled masses. I yearn to breathe free."
Liliana's handler looks at her. "Very good. Excellent," she tells her.
The scene is about as authentic as a B-movie script from one of the studios a few miles away in Hollywood. It's a shame because when she's allowed to just tell her story, Liliana is a compelling figure, her terror at being deported away from her three young children and her husband palpable.
Far more authentic is the scene in the Angelica Lutheran Church deep in the impoverished Pico Union barrio, near downtown Los Angeles. It's a landscape of broken-down old cars, discarded sofas, taco stands and street merchants hawking bags of secondhand goods. Little old ladies in flip-flops wander the streets. Prematurely aged men pause to rest on the furniture left out on the sidewalk.
Angelica is a large, arched, brick building. Originally built for Swedish immigrants, these days it is an evangelical church, presided over by the Rev. Carlos Paiva and attended mainly by Mexican migrants. Ads for the Harvest Bible University adorn its exterior. A small room in the back of the old building, furnished with a TV, couch, fridge and a stove, is currently home to José, a 44-year-old immigrant from Guadalajara, and father of four--the two youngest of whom are US citizens. To the furnishings he has added his clothes, a collection of English-language classes on CD and a few personal items.
José has lived in Los Angeles since 1989, when he paid a coyote $300 to help him cross over from Tijuana. In the years following, he worked several jobs, including truck maintenance at Los Angeles International Airport. He has been facing deportation proceedings since ICE caught up with him in 2004, and he sought sanctuary last February after ICE sent him a letter saying he was to be sent back to Mexico. The first church to welcome him was La Placita; then in September he moved to Angelica.
"Sometimes I feel very alone," he says in Spanish, sitting on a pew under the lush altar, with Paiva translating. "Depressed. It's not easy to be away from my family. I try to feel good. I try to be busy, working. I say prayers here." Paiva adds that José helps with the church's food distribution program to local seniors and also does custodial work around the building.
Given that there are an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in America, and the New Sanctuary Movement will only ever directly help a handful of them, its impact, as Chishti argues, is largely symbolic. And given the concerns about church-state separation, it has its problems, even at the level of symbolism. In light of the backlash it tends to provoke, it's also reasonable to ask whether it is always the best strategy for promoting the rights of immigrants. But its practitioners are, at the very least, offering a moral alternative to the overheated, often inflammatory rhetoric of the Lou Dobbses of the world.
Sanctuary advocates are spotlighting a broken immigration system that Congress has signally failed to fix. And they are standing up for downtrodden people in an era in which our patience for poverty and despair has too often been absent. Above all, they are refusing to compromise fundamental values. For all this, they may win public sympathy for their cause and inject a bit more humanity into the frequently callous immigration debate.
"I protest in silence," says Reverend Paiva, in Pico Union. "I protest with a peaceful heart. I protest by working together with Congressmen and politicians to work out a way we can solve this through humanitarian actions. This isn't about one or two people coming from another country. It's about power and the actions that create imbalances between countries. It's a part of the call, part of the mission, of the church. You need to be hospitable, welcome the stranger, help people in unjust situations."
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