Thread: President of LDS Latino branch in Draper faces deportation

(With video)
April 29th, 2011 @ 5:11pm

By ksl.com

DRAPER — A Draper man who serves as a branch president for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will soon be deported for being in this country illegally.


Immigrations agents arrested Felix Joaquin Callejas-Hernandez, his wife and two teenage children April 19 and they now face deportation to their native El Salvador. Callejas served as president of the Eastridge 9th Branch in Draper until his release last week.
Callejas-Hernandez, 53, remains incarcerated in the Utah County Jail. His wife Lucia Margarita Castillo de Callejas, 52; son Jose Moroni Callejas-Castillo, 19; and daughter Margarita Concepcion Callejas-Castillo, 18, were allowed to go home April 22, according to jail records.

"There's a lot of speculation about what happened," said Tony Yapias, director of Projecto Latino de Utah. "But this specific case, and this family, is a real tragedy in that none of them committed a crime."



U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not have an immediate statement but said they would look into the circumstances of the arrests.

Yapias said the family had previously sought asylum and has continued living in the United States while trying to become legal. He alerted the media to the family's situation via email Friday.



Cases such as this, Yapias said, are pitting LDS Church members against each other in the illegal immigration debate.

"We have to put a stop to the deportation caucus, LDS members who really want our Latinos deported," he said.
Yapias said the family, originally from El Salvador, had previously sought asylum and has continued living in the United States while trying to become legal.

"I wish our system would change, or we could do something with our system so we would have good people like the Callejas family and not be in a similar position as they are now," Yapias said.

Yapias hopes this case will put a face on the people who are in the United States illegally, but contributing to their community. He wants Utahns to look at the bigger picture of illegal immigration.

"I call on Utahns to be more compassionate on this issue," Yapias said. "I see this every single day, where families are being separated."

On Friday, LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter issued a brief statement regarding the situation the Callejas-Hernandez family finds itself in.
"This case reminds us all of the need to address immigration reform. As we have stated, we believe any solution should include the following three principles: the commandment to 'love thy neighbor,' the importance of keeping families intact and the federal government’s obligation to secure its border."



Attempts to reach the Callejas family were unsuccessful.



Ron Mortensen, co-founder of the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration, questions the church's support of illegal immigration bills that in his estimation condone illegal behavior.

"Given the support for HB116 and the rest of the package that came out, it does make it look like the church is trying to protect illegal aliens," he said.

It doesn't take long before immigrants who overstay their visas to obtain falsified documents or Social Security numbers, he said. Furthermore, he said the church seems to be ignoring the thousands of identity fraud victims.

"That's where I question what the church is doing on this. It's very difficult not be be committing a crime if you're here illegally," said Mortensen, a Mormon and retired foreign service official.

Yapias, also a Mormon, said he understands Callejas has taken his arrest in stride.

"He's not resentful of what happened," he said. "Rather, he was sharing the gospel with other inmates in jail."
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=15342463

No way!
I don't understand say it isn't so..An Illegal Morman Lol its too funny to even think of them being Morman..But then again they sure sucked the Mormans into their way of thinking..Most are Catholics and since Utah Is Morman country they adapted to that faith then did a switch a roo and started demanding for their Kind and The Mormans just followed them instead of saying we have been duped....Man Up Utah you got some cleaning up to do..

The notion that this sort of thing should be ok is a direct violation of the Mormn 12th Article of Faith: We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

Mormons tend to be sympathetic to those south of the border because they are viewed as the descendents of Book of Mormon people and because Mexico provided somewhat of a haven for exiled polygamists (and still does).

1. We want to keep families intact too, they should be deported together.

2. I'm sure he can share the gospel in El Salvador just as well as he can here. They need him there more than we do. Isn't that one of the things Mormon missionaries do? Share the gospel all over the world? What better way for this family to "share the gospel" than in their own country?

Cases such as this, Yapias said, are pitting LDS Church members against each other in the illegal immigration debate.

"We have to put a stop to the deportation caucus, LDS members who really want our Latinos deported," he said.

There it is, in plain words, Yapias wants to stop deportations of illegal aien latinos. Guess it's ok to deport non-latinos, eh Yapias?

DEPORT NOW!!

Get ALL of them outta here, the whole damn family.


The Mormon churches 12 & 13 Article of Faith states:



12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

13We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or
of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,106-1-2-1,FF.html



These illegal invaders are not obeying the laws of this nation and the leaders of the church need to address this!

Originally Posted by topsecret10

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Cases such as this, Yapias said, are pitting LDS Church members against each other in the illegal immigration debate.

So true invader. My family and friends who are Mormon are sick and tired of you illegals getting a free pass to break the law, while citizen members are held to a higher standard. LIKE, OBEYING THE LAW!!

And I wouldn't say "pitting LDS Church members against each other in the illegal immigration debate", I would say there are members that want EVERYONE in the church to be held by the same standards and legal members are seeing you getting treated differently. And they are getting pissed.

Even heaven has borders!

Yapass is the worst kind of racist, he thinks his race is allowed to do everything and anything without consequence. The law doesn't apply to Latinos and they are entitled to break any law they don't like at the moment.