Religions take various approaches to social justice issues—with some leaning more liberal than others, but churches have long been on the front lines of protecting members of vulnerable communities. And in Trump’s America, churches are continuing that work as they ramp up efforts to offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants at increased risk of deportation.
Two weeks ago, many of us followed the heartbreaking story of Guadalupe García de Rayos—an undocumented immigrant and the mother of two American-born children, who was deported after reporting dutifully for eight years to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After being returned to Mexico, a country where she hadn’t been for over 20 years, she had this to say about why she remained in the country illegally:
"The truth is I was there [in the United States] for my children. For a better future. To work for them. And I don't regret it, because I did it for love," she said in a news conference Thursday night from Nogales, Mexico.
When you hear it like that, it’s hard to imagine not having empathy for her. But Trump’s immigration plans don’t include empathy, nor do they make provisions for mothers who love and want to stay with their children. More recently, we heard about another case of an undocumented mother, Jeanette Vizguerra, who also had been reporting to ICE for eight years, and had been allowed to stay in the country with her four children during that time.
But this week, Vizguerra took a different route. Fearing deportation, she took refuge in the First Unitarian Society in Denver and declared sanctuary. The decision proved prescient: The day of Vizguerra's scheduled check-in, ICE officials told her attorney that Vizguerra's request to remain in the country had been denied.
Luckily, churches have been preparing for this moment since the election. And they have plenty of practice.
Churches played a huge role in sheltering Central American migrants in the 1980s, when civil wars brought an influx of border crossings. They reached out to immigrants again in 2007, when workplace raids were a common tactic among ICE officers. During the Central American child migrant surge in 2014, congregations revived the movement, opening up their doors to children and families fleeing violence. Churches were able to offer a safe haven to immigrants facing deportation and, in some cases, help individuals win temporary relief from removal.
Additionally, they are focusing time and resources into building networks of lay people who are poised to send a message to ICE that communities stand in solidarity with undocumented immigrants.
"The broader strategy is to shine a light on what ICE is doing," he says. "We want ICE to know that if they come into our neighborhoods and try to drag away our friends and neighbors, we are going to be there to slow it down and disrupt it." [...]
In Los Angeles, Guillermo Torres, an organizer with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, says that the group's congregations have been working with the National Immigration Law Center to develop rapid-response trainings. They want to train people to film encounters, interview witnesses, and build prayer walls around ICE officers. CLUE is also trying to enlist faith leaders who would be willing to go to detention centers after raids to talk to ICE officers or to serve as a source of spiritual support to detainees.
Some progressives love to bring up Barack Obama’s record on deportation when this topic comes up. We should be able to have that conversation while agreeing that more than one thing can be true at once. While it is true that Obama deported more immigrants than his predecessors and his legacy on immigration will be mixed at best, it is also true that Trump and company’s expansion of the categories of people subject to deportation poses a grave danger to immigrants and their families, whether they are undocumented or not. There are undocumented people who are now subject to deportation who are not priority removals and people who have temporary relief from deportation, who are not undocumented, who may suddenly find themselves at risk. This is chaos and, with ICE staging raids in public locations and harassing random people they think are undocumented, no one is really safe.
Lastly, it’s worth calling out Republicans on their hypocrisy (once again) here. The party of “family values” seems happy to go along with this madness because it’s right in line with their obsession with law and order. Even though it will separate mixed status families. Even though it will have a negative impact on the economy. Even though we all know that immigrants contribute to the diverse fabric of the country. If separating parents from their children is making America great again and is part of their platform, we should want no parts of it.