Thread: San Bernardino & Riverside counties, CA

Immigration issue energizes Inland forces on both sides of debate

By SHARON McNARY
The Press-Enterprise

The San Bernardino Diocese has asked parishes in the two-county area to provide sanctuary on church grounds to immigrants who face deportation.

No Catholic churches in either of the two Inland counties have yet committed, but local anti-illegal immigration groups vow to protest other Southern California sanctuary churches, beginning Saturday at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Long Beach.

The coming clash over the New Sanctuary Movement is one sign that the political battle over the fate of the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants, a battle that stalled last month in Washington, D.C., is relocating closer to home.

Since a U.S. Senate bill with provisions that would give temporary visas to undocumented immigrants failed last month, lawmakers have said the chances for an immigration law overhaul are remote until 2009 at the earliest.

Activists on both sides of the question say the next two years are an opportune time to build grass-roots support for their next attempt to change the nation's immigration laws.

Those who want expanded rights for undocumented immigrants plan to build the number of sanctuary churches and to lay the groundwork for organized challenges of workplace immigration raids.

In Riverside and San Bernardino counties, they are organizing efforts to persuade Latino voters and this year's bumper crop of recently naturalized citizens to unite in voting for a presidential candidate who would support giving legal status to illegal immigrants, 215,000 of whom live in the Inland area.

Proponents of stricter enforcement of immigration laws are challenging local policies that enable illegal immigrants to live and work here, and pushing state and local governments to aid in an ongoing federal crackdown. They also oppose the rise of sanctuary churches.

Immigrant Rights Advocates

Inland involvement in the multi-faith New Sanctuary Movement is still in its formative stages, said the Rev. Howard Lincoln, spokesman for Bishop Gerald R. Barnes, leader of the San Bernardino Diocese.

When passage of an immigration bill seemed possible this spring, Barnes said in an interview that he did not expect the diocese to join the New Sanctuary Movement. However, the bill's demise has led him to consider housing would-be deportees on church grounds, Lincoln said.

"We hold a special concern for the separation of children from their parents due to deportations and the exploitation of workers, and Bishop Barnes has asked that we explore the sanctuary movement as one possible avenue to relieve suffering and injustice," Lincoln said.

The sanctuary strategy is meant to spotlight immigration policies that divide families and send immigrants back to countries they had left for economic or political reasons, said Marco Raposo of the diocese's Office of Social Concerns.

Because congregants would be publicizing the immigrant's situation, rather than the person, they are unlikely to be charged with a crime, he said.

The federal government does not recognize claims of sanctuary.

Immigration agents are not barred from arresting a person who is living on the grounds of a religious organization, said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles.

She declined to say whether the agency, since its formation in 2003, has detained noncitizens who were living on religious grounds and claiming sanctuary from an immigration judge's deportation order.

The New Sanctuary Movement is based on the mid-1980s campaign, which shielded from deportation Central Americans who had come to the United States to avoid civil wars in their home countries. Seven people have claimed sanctuary in churches in Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego, North Hollywood, New York City and Chicago, said Daniel French, movement organizer.

SaveOurState.org, an Inland-based anti-illegal immigration group is joining other groups on July 28 to protest at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Long Beach.

"Our protest is about aiding and abetting what we view as breaking the law," said Save Our State spokeswoman Chelene Nightingale. "Why are churches feeling that they can harbor criminals? What's next? God says obey the laws of the land."

The Rev. Gary Commins, pastor of St. Luke's, said the protesters "don't care about the human beings involved. Christians protest against injustice, they don't seek discrimination."

Liliana Sanctuario, 28, moved into the church with her infant son, Pablo, on June 8 to avoid deportation to Mexico and a resulting separation from her husband and three children, who are all U.S. citizens. She and other sanctuary participants use the Spanish version of the word as a last name to symbolically unite themselves as a single family, Commins said.

Civic Battleground

The demise of immigration legislation in Washington has freed up local activists to attack city and county policies that enable illegal immigrants to live here, said Joseph Turner, a field representative for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

As founder of SaveOurState.org, he authored a San Bernardino initiative that sought to bar illegal immigrants from renting homes or working in the city. Turner's initiative did not get the necessary signatures to reach the ballot in San Bernardino, but what he calls "cookie-cutter" versions of the proposal have been adopted by Escondido as well as by Hazleton, Pa., and Farmer's Branch, Texas.

Turner was in court last week trying to get city officials in Vista to disclose the names of employers who had complied with a recently enacted ordinance that requires them to register with the city when they hire day laborers.

"We will make them fight the battle on our terms," he said, adding that he plans to author other local ordinances.

Through May, lawmakers at the state level introduced 1,169 immigration-related measures -- more than double the number proposed during all of 2006 -- according to the National Conference of State Legislators. Law enforcement, employment, benefits and education were the most common focuses of the legislation.

"I think the state and local level will drive the reforms, and I think, at some point, that is going to move Washington," said John Keeley, communications director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors greater immigration controls.

Activists will push for cities and counties to start or to expand programs to train local police to enforce federal immigration laws, said Jason Mrochek, co-founder and national director of the Fire Coalition, an umbrella organization of anti-illegal immigration groups.

"Start with the police department and ask what would be the obstacles to doing this," said Mrochek, a Menifee resident. "If they're not following through, you take it to the city council."

Mrochek said if necessary, coalition members will place initiatives on city and county ballots seeking local law enforcement participation in federal partnerships providing this training.

Jailers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties already participate in the 287(g) partnership program, named for a section of federal immigration law. They identify immigration law violators who have been booked into the counties' main jails and refer them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for possible deportation.

The Inland-based National Alliance for Human Rights will counter with efforts to get Latino voters to unite as a swing voting bloc behind a Democratic presidential candidate in 2008 who will support changes in immigration law, said coordinator Armando Navarro, a UCR professor.

The organization is also calling together union, church and political leaders this month to plan a strategy to react to expected future immigration raids on workplaces, Navarro said.

Reach Sharon McNary at 951-368-9458 or smcnary@PE.com

http://www.pe.com/localnews/immigration ... 6dcf1.html

Originally Posted by NCByrd

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No Catholic churches in either of the two Inland counties have yet committed, but local anti-illegal immigration groups vow to protest other Southern California sanctuary churches, beginning Saturday at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Long Beach.
......

Call those priests who are helping illegal aliens "holy hypocrites" - because that's what they are.

Looks like our government has allowed a situation to build that is going to result in another civil war. All because of big business greed!