They say government opposition deepens their commitment to help Central American refugees.
In March 1982, Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona, became the first “sanctuary” for Central Americans fleeing violence in their home countries. Since then, some 180 churches have followed suit, much to the chagrin of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) of the U.S. Justice Department.
In January, culminating an elaborate 10-month undercover operation, federal authorities indicted 16 sanctuary workers for aiding illegal aliens. In addition, authorities arrested some 65 Central American aliens across the country. Most of the approximately 500 people being sheltered by American churches are from El Salvador.
Sanctuary leaders say the aggressive federal action will make their workers more determined and their movement more visible. They say the arrests in Texas last year of sanctuary workers Stacey Merkt and Jack Elder stirred the pot of their rebellion.
“The church is a peculiar institution,” says John Fife, pastor of Tucson’s Southside Presbyterian Church and one of the 16 indicted. “It always responds to pressure with renewed vigor. Governments never understand that.”
The recent indictments and arrests caused attendance to soar at a recent national conference on sanctuary held in Tucson. Nearly 1,700 attended the meeting.
At the gathering, Merkt announced to a jubilant audience that a Texas jury had acquitted Elder, a Catholic lay worker who had been charged with transporting three undocumented Salvadorians 30 miles after they had crossed the border illegally. Jurors said that action was not a major violation.
Federal District Court Judge Hayden Head ruled in Elder’s trial that freedom of religion is a legitimate defense for sanctuary workers accused of aiding illegal aliens. Attorneys for the government have argued that religious motivation is irrelevant and have sought to narrow the focus of the issue to specific violations of the law.
For Merkt, the legal battle is still going on. She was sentenced last June to two years probation, and since then she has been charged with reneging on her probation agreement.
The Refugee Act of 1980 states that aliens must demonstrate “well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality … or political opinion” in order to be considered refugees. Gary MacEoin, a Tucson attorney active in the movement, notes that the United Nations high commissioner on refugees stated in 1981 that any Salvadorian who left his country since 1980 has a “prima facie claim to political asylum.”
UN spokesman Nicholas van Praag says that, technically, the aliens in question do not qualify as refugees. But he says the high commissioner used his office to demonstrate the UN’s concern for “displaced persons in a refugee-like situation.” Van Praag says the UN respects the sovereignty of its member nations while it remains deeply concerned about those who have fled violence in Central America.
INS spokesman Verne Jervis stresses that, according to the law, the U.S. government is responsible to determine who is a refugee. Jervis says sanctuary workers are “quite openly taking the law into their own hands” and thus “usurping the power of the attorney general.… If they would have brought [the aliens] to the proper authorities, it may not have been a crime.”
Sanctuary workers respond that those who do go through the proper channels meet with little success.
“The U.S. government defines these people as economic refugees, and we can understand that as a political position, but we can’t accept it, …” says Bill Price, of the evangelical Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C. Price says his church’s mission work has brought it into close contact with the Hispanic community in the United States. He says he is convinced that most Salvadorians are fleeing government persecution, not poverty.
In fiscal 1984, INS examined 13,373 requests for asylum from Salvadorians. Only 328 of the requests were approved. In 761 similar cases involving Guatemalans, asylum was granted in only three instances. In contrast, asylum was granted in 1,018 of the 8,292 cases involving Nicaraguans. Sanctuary workers say Nicaraguans have a better chance of obtaining asylum because the U.S. government opposes that country’s leftist regime.
However, Jervis, of the INS, says those statistics are based on cases in which only a first step was completed. He notes that there are four levels of appeal available to those seeking asylum. Of the approximately 19,000 Salvadorian aliens apprehended last year, he says, only 4,000 were deported. The rest have appealed their cases.
Jervis denies that asylum cases are influenced by the applicants’ nationalities. He says judges are not dominated by the Reagan administration’s political positions, noting that a high percentage of applicants for asylum from Communist Cuba are rejected.
One major reason the sanctuary movement and INS are at an impasse is that the law, as interpreted by INS, makes no provision for Central Americans who are politically neutral but are caught in the crossfire. According to Jervis, an alien may be able to prove that the rest of his family was “wiped out.” But if he cannot prove that the government in his country was responsible, that the action was intentional, and that he could be next in line, then he does not qualify for asylum.
Jervis concedes that the issue is complicated. But, he says, “at least one thing is relatively simple: there are legal avenues available to [sanctuary workers] in order for them to attain the same ends. And they’re avoiding those legal avenues.”
Evangelicals who are sympathetic to the plight of displaced Central Americans have for the most part steered clear of the sanctuary movement. Most of the churches supporting the movement are Roman Catholic or mainline Protestant.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) takes no official stand on sanctuary. “I do not want to condemn anyone in the sanctuary movement,” says Don Bjork of World Relief, the relief and development arm of NAE. “They have come up with some very convincing biblical and historical arguments to justify their actions.” Bjork adds, however, that he does not encourage evangelicals to join the movement. He says that respecting the U.S. government will produce more fruit.
Legislation being considered by Congress could make the sanctuary movement unnecessary. Authored primarily by U.S. Rep. Joseph Moakley (D-Mass.), it proposes that Salvadorians be allowed to remain in the United States for at least two years while the Congressional General Accounting Office studies the situation. Bjork calls the measure “a positive bill” and says it would solve the problem.
Moakley staff aide Jim McGovern says support for the bill is not limited to those who oppose U.S. foreign policy in El Salvador. “The humanitarian question of what happens to these refugees should not be a partisan political issue,” he says.
Indianapolis Wants To Become The Protestant Center Of The United States
The city of Indianapolis is trying to convince six Protestant denominations to join a seventh in building headquarters in the nation’s thirteenth-largest city.
The long-resident Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, and three Lutheran bodies that will merge by 1988 have been asked to consider building national offices in Indianapolis. The Lilly Endowment and private citizens have amassed a substantial dollar pool, which inside sources put at $50 million, to help attract the denominational headquarters.
“We see this as an opportunity to serve American institutions of enormous importance, as well as to enrich the life of our city,” said Robert Lynn, senior vice-president of the Lilly Endowment. Headquartered in Indianapolis, the endowment makes some of the nation’s largest grants to religious groups.
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is considering a move from its aging facilities on Indianapolis’s east side. Kenneth Teegarden, the church’s general minister and president, said the downtown area is a primary choice.
“We hope to make a witness to religious faith by having headquarters with a unique architectural style in the middle of a major city,” Teegarden said. “The city [of Indianapolis] has been good to us. The presence of several foundations in the city committed to enhancing human values is also a distinct attraction.”
Indianapolis Mayor William Hudnut III, a Presbyterian clergyman, said the churches might want to build in a downtown campus-type arrangement. “Why not go ecumenical and foster development of a shared life,” he said, “… to have out here in the heartland an ecumenical expression of that shared life with others.”
All seven denominations have expressed interest in moving their offices from current locations. The American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church in America, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches plan to merge by 1988. The three Lutheran bodies are scheduled to vote this year on a headquarters site for the new denomination.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has had headquarters in two cities, New York and Atlanta, since a 1983 merger. The church is planning to consolidate its offices, but the site has not yet been determined.
The United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church are reconsidering the location of their denominational offices because of high prices in New York City.
Indianapolis—ranked the most accessible of the largest 100 U.S. cities—is a day’s drive from half the U.S. population, Hudnut said. A 1984 survey of chambers of commerce revealed the city to have among the lowest cost of meals, lodging, labor, and taxes.
If the denominations agreed to move to Indianapolis, Hudnut said, liberalleaning national church staff would have to adjust to a population where “the Atlantic and the New Yorker [magazines] are not as avidly read.… If they came here, they might find out how out of touch they are with the man or woman in the pew.”
RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE
DEATHS
Lance B. Latham, 91, cofounder of the Awana Youth Association, founder and former pastor of Chicago’s North Side Gospel Center; January 15, in Chicago.
Rachmiel Frydland, 65, survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, Talmudic scholar, Jewish Christian missionary, helped organize the Jewish Christian movement in Israel, instructor in Judaica with Jews for Jesus; January 12, in Cincinnati.
John W. Baker, 64, general counsel and director of research services for the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, one of the nation’s foremost specialists in church-and-state law; January 12, in Bethesda, Maryland, of congestive heart failure.
Avis B. Christiansen, 89, poet, known for her texts that were set to music by some of this century’s leading hymn composers, worked in conjunction with Moody Bible Institute’s music department; January 14, in Niles, Illinois, after a stroke.
