Why Sanctuary Churches Welcome Immigrants

FOR CHRISTIANS who live near the U.S.-Mexico border, Jesus’ command to “love our neighbors as ourselves” takes on a particular urgency when we see our neighbors fleeing violence from their home countries and then being deported back at an alarming rate.

At Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, where I am pastor, we have a history of loving our neighbors by offering them protective sanctuary to shield them from deportation.

Sanctuary is an ancient biblical tradition. In Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and 1 Kings, scriptures describe the right of asylum in cities of refuge set aside for those accused of manslaughter until the truth of the matter could be resolved. There is also the tradition of those who seek the safety of the temple by clinging to the “horns of the altar” (1 Kings 1:50).

In the U.S., churches involved in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad provided sanctuary to escaping slaves. In the Vietnam War era, churches protected conscientious objectors. During the brutal wars in Central America in the 1980s, hundreds of U.S. churches declared a national sanctuary movement, protecting tens of thousands of refugees from being deported to almost certain death. Southside Presbyterian was one of the founding churches of the 1980s sanctuary movement.

In May 2014, after another wave of deportations, our congregation made a public declaration to once again become a sanctuary church. We welcomed Daniel Ruiz, a local undocumented father, into protection. After 28 days living in the church, he received a stay of deportation.

In August 2014, Rosa Robles Loreto entered into sanctuary at Southside. A mother of two boys, Rosa had lived in Tucson since 1999. She was pulled over while driving to work one day in 2010. “A sheriff stopped me and asked for my license. When I gave him my current Mexican one, he asked for my papers and I told him I didn’t have any...and he called immigration,” Robles told the media. After two months in detention and the rejection of her appeal of deportation, it was determined by Rosa, her lawyer, and our congregation that the best option for her—the last option, really—was to enter into sanctuary.

For 461 days Rosa remained in our church, under our protective sanctuary. She lifts her voice for countless undocumented mothers like herself. Our congregation has learned that sanctuary is not just about welcoming someone into the sacred space of the church where law enforcement will not enter. It is about someone entrusting their life to the protection of a community that is mobilized to stop their deportation.

During the last three months of 2015, the border patrol detained 21,469 Central Americans traveling as families, according to The Christian Science Monitor. That’s triple the 2014 number. And during the first few weeks of 2016, the Obama administration launched a series of deportation raids, primarily against women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

As Southside’s pastor emeritus John Fife says, “When human lives are on the line, the only ethical act is to resist.” As long as deportations of Central American mothers and children continue, we will resist in love the only way we know how: sanctuary.

Since May 2014, 12 others have publicly claimed sanctuary in churches across the U.S., including two at Southside. Ten have resolved their cases, including Rosa Robles Loreto, who returned home to her family in November.