Thread: 450 churches prepare to act as Trump-era ‘underground railroad’ for illegal aliens

450 churches prepare to act as Trump-era ‘underground railroad’ for undocumented immigrants

DAVID FERGUSON
28 DEC 2016 AT 14:23 ET

Fugitive slaves fleeing from Eastern Maryland to an Underground Railroad depot in Delaware Ca. 1863. (Shutterstock.com)


A network of 450 houses of worship across the country are stepping up to act as a kind of “underground railroad” for undocumented immigrants under the nascent Donald Trump administration.

The New York Times said that these churches, synagogues and mosques are all part of the Sanctuary Movement — an interfaith movement that began in the 1960s, but which has undergone a revival in recent years as the U.S. has stepped up deportation of undocumented immigrants.

The Sanctuary Movement has gained even more momentum since the election of Republican Donald Trump, who has pledged to deport 2 to 3 million unauthorized immigrants who he says are guilty of crimes. While not every church has the space and resources necessary to physically shelter immigrants, all 450 organizations have pledged to provide “money, legal aid, food, child care or transportation,” said the Times‘ Laurie Goodstein.

“Jesus said we are to provide hospitality to the stranger,” said the Rev. Robin Hynicka of New York City’s Arch Street United Methodist Church. The Times noted that Hynicka cited “Matthew 25, in which Jesus instructs his followers to feed, house and clothe ‘the least of these,’ the poor and vulnerable.”

Hynicka’s church is serving as a physical sanctuary for Javier Flores Garcia, a father of two who was ordered to report to immigration authorities for deportation in the fall. Rather than leave his partner, their two children and a 13-year-old stepdaughter behind, Flores has taken refuge in Arch Street’s basement.

Immigration authorities consider hospitals, schools and churches to be “sensitive locations” — places where they are ordered not to make arrests unless they receive explicit permission from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) supervisor or there are “exigent circumstances” that require immediate action.

Flores has a long history with ICE officials, the Times said. “He was apprehended nine times between 1997 and 2002 trying to cross the border. He re-entered and was ordered removed by a judge in 2007. He re-entered twice in 2014 and served prison sentences for illegal re-entry, a criminal felony conviction.”

“My only crime is coming back,” Flores said.
Rev. Alexia Salvatierra of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America told the Times that the Sanctuary Movement — which was largely led by white Protestant churches in the 1980s — got a boost in momentum from Latin churches in 2006. As the Obama administration stepped up deportations, churches began to protect their congregants.

“We’re in a different universe now. We don’t need the white people to rescue us, thank you very much. We need to be in partnership,” Salvatierra said.

Jessica Vaughn of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) — a conservative group that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says has “deep racist roots” and acts as the one of the respectable faces of U.S. white nationalism — said that she thinks the Sanctuary Movement is misguided.

Vaughn said she feels some sympathy for the people being deported, “But I find myself wishing that they had as much sympathy for other parishioners they have who are adversely affected by illegal immigration,” she said. The CIS maintains that undocumented workers undercut wages, take jobs from U.S. citizens and cause crime rates to spike, in spite of an abundance of evidence to the contrary.

The Sanctuary Movement’s Rev. Alison Harrington of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson recently told a workshop full of volunteers that it’s uncertain whether churches will remain inviolable under Pres. Donald Trump.

“We can’t assume that churches and houses of worship will remain safe locations,” Harrington said.

In the 1980s, when churches were welcoming and harboring refugees from South and Central American wars, the faith groups operated as a kind of “underground railroad,” transporting undocumented immigrants from unsafe areas to safe ones.

The churches are preparing to fulfill that function again, if necessary.

“What better work for the church to do,” Hynicka said, “than to provide what we know God gives us, our heartfelt commitment to family, whether that family comes from Mexico, or from Philadelphia, or wherever.’’

https://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/450...ed-immigrants/

These churches should cooperate with some of those south of the border and re integrate these people. I doubt that the new leadership of DHS and the US DOJ will tolerate this. Churches can have freedom to do a lot of things but not to openly challenge immigration policy.

That's 450 churches and synagogues that should lose their non-profit tax status immediately!

W

Students from 100 universities are fighting for ‘sanctuary campuses’ to defy Trump

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

That's 450 churches and synagogues that should lose their non-profit tax status immediately!

W

Exactly.

by JOHN BINDER
29 Dec 2016
Philadelphia, PA

In a faith-focused piece from The New York Times, the left-leaning paper gushes over religious institutions across the country offering “sanctuary” to migrant felons.

The piece, titled “Houses of Worship Poised to Serve as Trump-Era Immigrant Sanctuaries,” showcases the movement known as “Sanctuary Not Deportation,” where churches help shield illegal immigrants from federal law enforcement.

For instance, The Times write-up mentions one church which is actively helping to harbor illegal immigrant felon Javier Flores Garcia of Mexico, who is facing deportation again after already being deported three times prior.

Flores “took refuge” in the Arch Street United Methodist Church, according to The Times, after he bypassed federal immigration officials and failed to arrive for his scheduled deportation back to Mexico:

The federal immigration authorities say Mr. Flores has a long history of violations: He was apprehended nine times between 1997 and 2002 trying to cross the border. He re-entered and was ordered removed by a judge in 2007. He re-entered twice in 2014 and served prison sentences for illegal re-entry, a criminal felony conviction.

Flores told the Times that his “only crime is coming back,” referring to the number of times federal immigration officials have had to deport the Mexican national.

The efforts by churches to shield illegal immigrants from federal laws has been ongoing throughout the Obama Administration, but is now being trotted out by the mainstream media more than ever, as President-Elect Donald Trump is set to head to Washington, D.C.

Under Trump’s immigration policies, businesses will have to verify that their employees are legal residents in the country; foreign guest worker visa programs will see a crack-down; and a border wall is expected to be erected along the southern border.

The Times heralded the idea of illegal immigrants no longer having to rely on white Americans for help, quoting Pastor Salvatierra saying, “We’re in a different universe now. We don’t need the white people to rescue us, thank you very much. We need to be in partnership.”

Rev. Alison Harrington of the Southside Presbyterian Church compared her church’s potential relocation of illegal immigrants from states with strict immigration policies to region’s with more lax policies to the “underground railroad”:

Sanctuary workers in the ’80s organized a sort of “underground railroad” to move immigrants from dangerous regions to safer ones, and that may have to be reactivated, she told her workshop.

The Times also downplayed illegal immigrants involved in falsifying documentation papers and faking credit cards, quoting Rev. Donna Schaper of the Judson Memorial Church: “We are talking mostly about white-collar crime. Faking credit cards. Faking IDs. Many of these people are quite middle class and well educated,” she said, and they are not only Latinos, but also Chinese, Russians, Pakistanis and many others.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which is tasked with deporting individuals living in the country illegally, and Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Policy Director Jessica Vaughn were only given two paragraphs in the Times write-up to counter the pro-illegal immigration narrative in the piece:

But some see sanctuary as misguided, or naïve. Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports tighter controls on immigration, said she understood that churches had sympathy for people facing deportation. “But I find myself wishing that they had as much sympathy for other parishioners they have who are adversely affected by illegal immigration” because of jobs, higher taxes or crime.

Churches, schools and hospitals are considered “sensitive locations,” according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigration officers are supposed to avoid those locations, unless they have advance approval from a supervisor or face “exigent circumstances” that require immediate action, said Jennifer Elzea, an agency spokeswoman.

The Times failed to mention how shielding illegal immigrants from federal law incentivizes more to flood the southern border, expecting protection once within the country.

Recently, Breitbart Texas obtained photos from border-region citizens who encountered 21 illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande in a matter of minutes.

The illegal immigrants were moved throughout an area that is “used by the Gulf Cartel to move illegal immigrants from Central America and countries other than Mexico across the Texas border with Mexico,” Breitbart Texas reported at the time.

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/...igrant-felons/

To compare illegal aliens to slaves is a cruel display of ignorance.