Thread: CT: Danbury church joins movement to help illegal immigrants

Danbury church joins movement to help illegal immigrants
May 18, 2008

DANBURY, Conn. (AP) _ A Danbury congregation is joining a national movement to offer shelter and help to families whose members could be separated or deported over their immigration status.

However, officials of the Danbury Unitarian Universalist Congregation say they do not yet know whether they will emulate some other churches that let the immigrants live in church-owned properties to shield them from federal agents.

Carl Tichler, the Danbury congregation's president, said its members voted 67-7 to become the first in Connecticut to join the nationwide New Sanctuary Movement. Members will decide over the next several months what actions they will take, he said.

"We're going to work with the New Sanctuary Movement as a whole. It's not as if we are going to go out and find immigrants," Tichler said.

The New Sanctuary Movement is loosely based on a 1980s initiative, in which churches harbored Central American refugees fleeing wars in their home countries.

Organizers have said do not believe agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will make arrests inside the churches. The congregations' assistance to immigrants ranges from providing material goods and legal help to letting them live at least temporarily in church-owned property.

The Danbury congregation's decision comes three months after city officials authorized its police force to receive federal immigration enforcement training so officers can detain people living illegally in the city.

Mayor Mark Boughton has said waves of immigrants are straining schools and leading to other problems such as crowded housing and unlicensed drivers.

Boughton declined to comment Sunday on the church's decision to join the New Sanctuary Movement, saying he does not know what it entails.

"As far as I'm concerned, the church is free to do whatever it thinks is appropriate," he told The Associated Press.

Danbury has come under criticism from some immigrants' rights activists for using undercover police officers to promise jobs to day laborers in 2006, then turning them over to federal agents for deportation.

A federal judge earlier this year refused to block the deportations of those nine men, ruling Danbury police did not exceed their authority. Supporters of the laborers are appealing the ruling.
newsday.com/news/local/wire/connecticut/ny-bc-ct--danbury-immigrati0518may18,0,308256.story

Boughton declined to comment Sunday on the church's decision to join the New Sanctuary Movement, saying he does not know what it entails.

"As far as I'm concerned, the church is free to do whatever it thinks is appropriate," he told The Associated Press.

No, it is not free to do whatever it thinks is appropriate. Encouraging illegal aliens to remain in the US is a violation of federal law, and it does not matter whether it is a church doing it or not. This church should not be allowed to have exemption from various taxes---and then act contrary to the good of the US citizenry in this manner. Interested parties may use IRS form 13909 to file a complaint regarding violation of its charitable, non-profit status.

What is the difference between smugglers hiding illegal aliens in a drop house until travel arrangements can be made and religious leaders shielding illegal aliens in a church until ICE leaves town?

Flo--living in the Chicago church--is symbolic for the pro-illegal alien supporters and the costs are repaid in free publicity.

In Postville, if an ICE agent remained in town, wouldn't the 400 illegal aliens remain living at the church? How long would the tolerance and funding of the church continue to shelter and feed the 400--one month....two months?