Immigration arrests in churches? Some clergy say not so fast
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- The Trump administration rescinded a policy that prohibited immigration agents from making arrests in sensitive areas, such as hospitals, schools and churches.
- Religious leaders are already discussing how to provide shelter or legal aid for members of their congregations swept up in enforcement actions.
- A reverend in Detroit who spoke at President Trump’s inauguration says immigration agents should be able to apprehend people in churches.
WASHINGTON — With the Trump administration declaring that immigration agents are now free to make arrests in places of worship, undeterred faith leaders in Southern California and beyond say they are prepared to aid and even shelter immigrants.
“We have an executive order from God, not from politicians,” said Guillermo Torres, who leads immigration campaigns at Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group in Los Angeles. “Do you think we’re going to betray the greatest commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself?”
The enforcement policy, announced last week, rescinded a 2011 memo that restricted immigration agents from making arrests in sensitive locations, such as churches and schools.
A group of Quaker congregations on Monday sued the Department of Homeland Security in federal court over the policy change, saying the threat of immigration enforcement deters congregants from attending services, harming religious liberty.
Bishop John Taylor of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles said he looks forward to joining with colleagues in mounting further legal challenges “if the government follows through on its stated intention to violate the sanctity of churches and other places of worship when they shelter those fleeing unjust power.”
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Dozens of immigrants took refuge inside houses of worship during President Trump’s first term. Under the Biden administration, immigrants without serious criminal convictions were no longer priorities for deportation.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the Department of Homeland Security announced Jan. 21.
Southern California faith leaders have been preparing for this moment and met throughout December to discuss how to respond to the new administration, Torres said. Requests have poured in since last week from leaders of different faiths across the region, asking how they can support immigrants.
Church leaders said they are organizing “know your rights” training sessions for members of their congregations and labeling certain buildings as private property to dissuade immigration agents from attempting to gain access without a warrant. Pro bono attorneys are on call to offer legal support to congregations in case of immigration raids, Torres said.
Some are joining rapid-response networks that would go to the scene of an immigration arrest.
“We want to sift through the noise and make sure that our people have the right information, that they are shrewd, that they aren’t naive,” said Rene Molina Jr., a pastor at nondenominational church in Los Angeles that is made up almost entirely of immigrants. Molina, who asked that his church not be named out of fear about threats of violence, said some members of the congregation have told him they are scared and need to prepare for the worst, while others have said they believe the threats of mass deportation are all talk.
Among the clergy who are planning to shelter immigrants is the Rev. Carlos Ramirez, who leads a majority-immigrant Pentecostal church in East Los Angeles. Ramirez asked that the church not be named out of fear about threats of violence.
Ramirez said his church has space to house up to 10 people. For Ramirez, an immigrant who came from Mexico more than three decades ago to work in the fields of Fresno, the issue is personal.
“I will do whatever I can to protect the people that I serve,” he said. “I’m willing to — I’m not joking — even put myself in the middle between [an immigration agent] and my congregation.”
For leaders of the sanctuary movement, the idea that serious criminals would take refuge in churches is ridiculous.
“Where at any point in history has a murderer or a rapist claimed sanctuary in a congregation?” said the Rev. Noel Anderson, national field director at Church World Service. “That’s never happened.”
The concept of sanctuary dates to ancient Egypt, where fugitives could enter sacred spaces to avoid arrest. It would become deeply rooted in Christian tradition in Europe. Colonists later brought this concept to America, where it shifted toward “trying to protect people who seem unfairly treated by the system,” said Karl Shoemaker, author of “Sanctuary and Crime in the Middle Ages, 400-1500.” Churches played a role in the anti-slavery Underground Railroad that guided fugitives northward.
Sanctuary became linked to immigration in the 1980s as Central Americans fled regional civil wars for the United States.
The goal of sanctuary is for immigration officials to grant the person a stay of deportation. Afterward, an attorney can determine whether they qualify for some type of legal status, such as asylum.
The Trump administration’s use of U.S. military aircraft to return deportees has raised alarms throughout Latin America.
Anderson worries that the Trump administration will be far less willing to use discretion against pursuing cases in which someone faces deportation but doesn’t have a immediate legal avenue for relief.
During Trump’s first term, Church World Service tracked more than 800 churches willing to offer sanctuary.
From 2017 through 2020, there were at least 70 public cases of immigrants taking sanctuary nationwide. None was in California. Anderson said other cases didn’t go public because the person didn’t feel comfortable or it didn’t make sense as a legal strategy. This time, fewer cases are likely to be public.
“You might see a model of the Underground Railroad being practiced here,” Torres said.
Another iteration of the sanctuary movement came as houses of worship were rendered empty during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many began to offer transitional housing to immigrants released from detention facilities and recently arrived asylum seekers.
All Saints in Pasadena is one of those Southern California churches with a history of defending the rights of immigrants. Hanging outside the church is a large banner that says “All Saints Welcomes ALL Refugees.”
The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, who leads the New Season Church in Sacramento, said he believes the new arrest policy will apply to only serious criminals and other national security threats. He said the policy conveys the message to so-called sanctuary cities and states such as California, with laws limiting collaboration between local law enforcement and immigration authorities, that they should start cooperating to avoid the “collateral” arrests of people without criminal histories.
“They’re not going to come after John Garcia who works at Wendy’s and has been here for 25 years,” said Rodriguez, who led a prayer during Trump’s 2017 inauguration and advised him on immigration. “It could be a strategy on behalf of the administration, yes, to instill fear.”
But Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, told Fox News on Tuesday that sanctuary jurisdictions are making the job of arresting immigrants more difficult and that more arrests will ensue “if they want to play that game.”
At least one arrest so far has taken place on church grounds. Federal agents in Tucker, Ga., arrested Wilson Rogelio Velasquez Cruz during a service at Iglesia Fuente de Vida. Velasquez Cruz, who wore an ankle monitor as an asylum seeker, went outside when the monitor went off to avoid interrupting the service. Agents were waiting. His wife told WSB-TV in Atlanta that he has never faced legal trouble and that the family had fled violence in Honduras two years ago.
The Rev. Lorenzo Sewell of the nondenominational 180 Church in Detroit, said immigration agents should be allowed anywhere to apprehend people who are in the country illegally. Sewell, who delivered a prayer during Trump’s inauguration, said that if agents attempted to remove someone from his church, he would try to make the process as peaceful as possible. Failing to comply, he said, would risk making his other congregants feel unsafe.
Being in the country illegally, he said, is the “equivalent of anybody else who’s breaking the law. We’ve had people in our church that have committed murder and have come to church and we’ve taken them to jail.”
Living in the U.S. without lawful immigration status is a civil, not criminal, violation.
President Trump has implemented multiple policies aimed at weakening sanctuary cities’ resistance to helping with deportations.
Prominent faith leaders outside Trump’s circle have condemned his approach on immigration. Pope Francis called Trump’s plans for mass deportations a “disgrace.”
During an inaugural prayer service last week, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Washington, angered Trump when she said “the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” and asked that he “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
But those messages have done little to stamp out the growing sense of unease among immigrants who face the possibility of deportation.
Last week, employees with the California-based national union representing farmworkers opened their work mailboxes to find cards that urged the reporting of undocumented immigrants, including those in church.
The cards concluded: “THERE IS NOWHERE TO HIDE!”
Times staff writer David Wharton in Los Angeles contributed to this article.
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