Thread: Anti-illegal immigration activists eye Fallbrook church

Anti-illegal immigration activists eye Fallbrook church

By: EDWARD SIFUENTES - Staff Writer

FALLBROOK ---- Anti-illegal immigration activists who have organized protests around North County at day-labor sites, migrant camps, city halls and the San Diego County Fair have recently set their sights on a new target: St. Peter's Catholic Church in Fallbrook.

For the last three weeks, members of the San Diego Minutemen have staged vociferous Saturday protests against an informal labor center run by the church. The protests have involved shouting through a bullhorn, displaying an effigy of a priest wearing a devil's mask and waving picket signs against illegal immigration.

One of the protests took place last month as children left the church after celebrating their First Communion, a traditional Roman Catholic ceremony, said Claudia Smith, an immigrant rights advocate who was at the church during the protests.

"It was incredibly disrespectful to spoil a child's First Communion," Smith said. "It was a new low."

Jeff Schwilk, founder of the San Diego Minutemen, said the church attracted his group's attention because it allows day laborers to gather on its property looking for work. He said his group believes most of the workers are illegal immigrants and that the church is breaking federal laws by helping them find jobs.

"It's not that we shouldn't be helping people, but they are here illegally," Schwilk said.

Rev. Edward "Bud" Kaicher, the church's pastor, said the Minutemen should protest the federal government, not the church. He said that offering the workers a safe place to gather is part of the church's mission, and he plans to continue do to so.

"It's just part of what we are as a church," he said.

For many years, migrant workers have sought work as day laborers at the corner of Fallbrook Street and Stagecoach Lane, near the church. More than 15 years ago, the church began offering the workers breakfast and a place for them to meet employers, Kaicher said.

On his group's Web site, Schwilk wrote that the church requires workers to pay the church in the form of manual labor on church projects. Kaicher said that is false. He said workers have offered to do volunteer work in the past, but are not required to do so by the church.

A nonprofit organization that runs two hiring centers in the county proposed developing a hiring center separate from the church's about six years ago in an attempt to draw workers off the streets. But the project was derailed by opposition and questions of whether the project was needed, as the church was already operating an informal hiring center.

The church owns a large complex at the corner of Stage Coach Lane and St. Peter's Drive that includes a school, a social hall and an office building. More than two dozen workers, many of whom are Latino, line up each morning next to the office building adjacent to the church and wait for employers to drive into the lot.

Schwilk said his group has received numerous complaints about crime in the area from Fallbrook residents about the day-labor site. He said he called immigration authorities to shut it down, but was told they would not act because the site was on church property.

That's part of the reason his group decided to hold protests, he said. His supporters also said they were outraged by the Roman Catholic Church's outspoken support for immigration reform in Congress that would help legalize illegal immigrants.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego said agents have the authority to arrest suspected illegal immigrants on church property, but that doing so is not considered a high priority.

In mid-June, the group held a protest outside the church. Another one was held a couple of weeks later, in late June.

At that protest, about two dozen people attended a demonstration against the church carrying signs that read, "Hire U.S. citizens; let Mexico feed her own," and "Tax the Catholic church; a political organization."

Immigrant rights advocates from various faiths say that helping immigrants is part of their religious duty.

Rabbi Laurie Coskey of Poway, a member of a group advocating for comprehensive immigration reform, said there is a long tradition of religious leadership in civil rights, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.

"We see it as being religious, not being political," said Coskey, who belongs to the Immigrant Rights Consortium of San Diego County. "We are praying with our feet."

Ray Carney, a Fallbrook resident and anti-illegal immigration activist, disagreed. He said the church is overstepping its bounds by running a labor center.

"The church's mission is to help the poor; I agree with that," Carney said. "But this is not helping someone by giving them a meal and a blanket and telling them to move on. You don't run a day-labor site on your property."

Carney and others said they plan to continue the protests until the church decides to close the day-labor site.

"We're going to be there until the cows come home," he said.

Ricardo Favela, a Fallbrook Latino rights activist, said the Minutemen's tactics could backfire. He said his family attends services at St. Peter's Catholic Church and he was baptized at the parish.

"It really shows their desperation," Favela said. "I don't know who they are going to convince by attacking the church."

Favela said priests at the church are meeting with members of the congregation to address the protests. He said he believes the Minutemen's attempt to close the site will fail.

"This day-labor center should be celebrated," he said. "It should be a model for other day-labor sites. I see the Minutemen taking up a lost cause."

Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/07 ... 7_7_07.txt

Duplicate Post. The other one is in Discussions, but I will move it to News Stories.