An asylum-seeking family that has been in sanctuary nearly 850 days “half-stepped, half-danced” out of the Philadelphia church they’d called home just days before Christmas, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) dropped its deportation effort against them, CNN reports. Oneita and Clive Thompson, who fled gang violence in Jamaica in 2004 and are believed to be the first Black family to publicly go into sanctuary, will now be able to pursue permanent status in the U.S.
"It's still sinking in, it was liberating. I don't know how to explain it," Oneita told CNN after stepping out of Tabernacle United Church on Dec. 21. She has said that she was so terrified of being swept up by ICE that “I would not even go on the porch, I was so fearful.” Now she and her husband get to go home to New Jersey after more than two years. "You just want to spread your wings and fly away,” she continued to CNN.
“When President Donald Trump took office in 2017 and began his anti-immigrant crackdown, ICE immediately targeted low-hanging fruit: undocumented immigrants who had deep roots in the U.S. and had been checking in with immigration officials for years,” Prism’s Tina Vasquez wrote earlier this year. That included the Thompsons, who have been allowed to stay in the U.S. and keep working following the denial of their asylum claims. That all changed in August 2018, and along with their two youngest children—both U.S. citizens—they went into sanctuary with the help of the New Sanctuary Movement.
While Oneita did exactly what was asked of her by checking in regularly with ICE, she told Vasquez that she was racked with guilt about the family being forced to go into sanctuary. “Sometimes I think: Where did I go wrong?” she told Prism earlier this year. “Could I have done something different to stay in this country, to make sure my kids didn’t have to suffer these challenges? What else could I have done? I tried to do everything right. I worked hard and paid my taxes. It keeps me up at night to wonder if I did something wrong. It feels so horrible to be in a position where you can’t help your family the way that you want to.”
The Thompsons haven’t been alone in this anguish. Vasquez said last year that dozens of immigrants are in sanctuary after receiving final deportation orders. While ICE considers houses of worship “sensitive locations” that are generally off-limits to most enforcement action, the out-of-control agency has used other avenues to intimidate immigrants in sanctuary, including trying to fine them astronomical amounts of money they’ll never be able to pay. Edith Espinal-Moreno, an Ohio mom of two U.S. citizens who has been in sanctuary since 2017, was told by the federal government to pay nearly $500,000 in fines.
The road to the Thompsons’ victory began when the family filed a motion to reopen their case after a daughter not in sanctuary with them gained U.S. citizenship. “After the Thompsons' two affidavits, previous letters from Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, and Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pennsylvania), and approximately 200 letters from church and community members, ICE decided to join the Thompsons' motion to reopen their asylum case,” CNN reported.
Four days before Christmas, they were finally able to return home to New Jersey. However, they’ll never be able to regain the more than two years they lost for no reason other than they were easy targets for the federal government. Nor can Oneita easily come back from the anguish she was put through for just trying to keep her family safe. Others still in sanctuary are hopefully waiting for their day to come soon too.