Posted on 05/25/2008 4:17:34 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
A small group of faith-driven activists in San Antonio has a message for unauthorized immigrants who are being run out from coast to coast by new laws and massive raids: You're welcome here.
Meeting quietly for months at a local church, they decided to counter what they see as an increasingly toxic anti-immigrant atmosphere by turning the city into a sanctuary for unauthorized immigrants.
The activists, all Catholics, are trying to organize a network of places and services that migrants can tap for help.
Need a place to stay? They can find one for you. Pockets and stomach empty? They'll get you some food. Too afraid to go to a hospital? They'll line up a doctor.
If the project pans out, all immigrants would need to do to get help is ask for “Romo.”
The group named it for Toribio Romo, a Mexican priest killed in the 1920s and later canonized as a saint. Many unauthorized border crossers invoke him when praying for successful passage into the United States.
Critics of the plan — including anti-illegal-immigration groups, government officials and the top Catholic leader in South Texas — warn that “Grupo Romo” is misguided at best and willfully breaking the law at worst.
Unfazed, Romo organizers abide by the literal belief in a higher calling.
“We are the new Sanctuary Movement in San Antonio,” said group member Víctor Ruiz, 63, who works for the immigration division of Catholic Charities and previously was with the Defense Department in Corpus Christi. “If immigrants need help, we will do all we can to help them out.”
The original “Sanctuary Movement” was a religious effort in the 1980s that created an underground railroad for Central Americans fleeing the region's bloody civil wars, whose trail crossed South Texas.
Jack Elder, a member of the earlier movement who ran Casa Oscar Romero, an immigrant shelter in Brownsville, has no regrets, despite spending five months in prison.
“Sometimes you just have to take a stand, so I hope people support this new group,” said Elder, now a high school teacher in San Antonio.
The Romo group arose independently, but similar coalitions in 35 cities have formed the “New Sanctuary Movement” to offer refuge to parents whose pending deportations would split them from their U.S.-born children.
The Romo mission is more universal, focused on the religious requirement of helping the stranger — organizers often cite Matthew 25 in the New Testament — but the national group applauds any such effort.
“What they're doing over there is incredibly powerful,” said Kristin Kumpf, a national organizer with Interfaith Worker Justice in Chicago and a national spokeswoman for the New Sanctuary Movement. “I'm grateful that people of faith in San Antonio are welcoming our immigrant brothers and sisters.”
Work in progress
Romo organizers aren't quite sure how far they'll take the effort. Citing it as a work in progress, their ultimate goal would be to find donated space to open their own immigrant shelter. Until then, they have lined up a couple of volunteer families that have already hosted immigrants, they said.
Since fundraising is not their forte, for now they're sticking to more attainable objectives.
Once a week, they visit day laborers, mostly undocumented migrants from Mexico and Central America, offering them coffee, breakfast tacos and small cards bearing a picture of Saint Toribio Romo on one side and a prayer and phone number on the other.
That number, a prepaid cell phone, has been dubbed the “Romo line” and will be the entry point for immigrants seeking help, as well as for supporters who want to volunteer or make a donation.
Besides outreach, the group is trying to connect people who already are quietly helping undocumented immigrants, hoping to create a more structured network.
It isn't lost on group members that they're flirting with violating federal immigration laws. Some are more willing to risk arrest than others, but all are convinced that religious and moral tenets supersede what they deem to be unjust laws.
“Immigrants need to know that they're not alone, that not everyone in this country is their enemy,” said Father Donald Bahlinger, 79, a Jesuit priest at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church who spent nearly a decade in Central America in the 1990s and sparked the Romo effort here.
Nodding in agreement, Lee Theilen, who works at the church, added: “We're accomplices if we don't speak out against this injustice.”
Some religious leaders contacted by the group praised the effort and are considering how to help.
For the Rev. Rob Mueller, it would mean returning to an incomplete project. About four years ago, he and members of Divine Redeemer Presbyterian Church wanted to open an immigrant shelter, but they couldn't find funding and the idea was dropped.
Offering sanctuary to the undocumented is controversial even within immigrant-heavy congregations.
Víctor Rodríguez, pastor of South San Filadelfia Baptist Church, personally experienced the issue's divisive nature after his church took in an immigrant two years ago for about two weeks. Many congregants opposed the move.
Rodríguez concluded it was the right thing to do. The church has since taken in others and would expand the effort by joining the Romo network.
“People should always look to the church as a safe haven,” he said. “It shouldn't be about legal issues — it's about our moral obligation from God to help those in need.”
Law over religion
Opponents say exactly the opposite: The law trumps religious compassion.
Jim “Hoot” Gibson, a San Antonio teacher and member of U.S. Border Watch, a Houston-based immigration-restriction group, said he and others stand ready to protest the Romo group.
The law is unequivocal, Gibson said: They'll be aiding and harboring undocumented immigrants.
A similar warning was sounded by Jerry Robinette, director of investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Antonio.
He's all for people acting on political and religious convictions, and he's got nothing against helping needy folks, but he can't look the other way if they break immigration laws.
“I'd caution them that good intentions could make them criminally liable,” Robinette said. “They have to make the decision whether they want to violate the law or not.”
Even Archbishop José Gomez, who leads the Archdiocese of San Antonio, questioned the Romo group's philosophy, saying sanctuary for immigrants historically has been a political act and thus not purely religious charity.
It's noble to want to help immigrants — as long as it's done legally, he said.
“We respect the laws of this country,” said Gomez, who's originally from Monterrey, Mexico. “We're not promoting illegal immigration or any kind of sanctuary movement.”
One religious scholar in San Antonio can see both sides of the argument.
It's commendable that Romo members are willing to follow their faith on behalf of immigrants, but ultimately, they may do more harm than good, said Javier Elizondo, vice president of academic affairs at Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio.
Massive pro-immigrant marches in recent years backfired by helping fuel national anti-immigrant sentiment, said Elizondo, who teaches Christian ethics.
It now remains to be seen whether the Romo sanctuary effort also draws more skeptics than supporters, he said.
Too bad our gutless leadership wouldn’t see this as an oportunity to easily round up some illegals for deportation.
Well, if the illegal immigrants are going to come in and spread tuberculosis and leprosy, I suppose this could be seen as our “first line of defense”. Not wishing anything on them, they volunteered for the job.
On the other hand, it seems to me to be Scripture twisting to ignore the passages that teach being subject to authorities and scoff at this country's immigration laws and harbor illegal aliens who are really fugitives. Note that in this country even illegal aliens are granted due process.
I think the Christian thing to do is to help people do well in their own country or help them to come to this country legally. I don’t see what is Christian about helping someone do something that is illegal.
We agree
I would also add the the elders of the local churches who scoff at this country’s laws will have to answer to the Chief Shepherd for ignoring His Word.
“We respect the laws of this country,” said Gomez, who’s originally from Monterrey, Mexico. “We’re not promoting illegal immigration or any kind of sanctuary movement.”
Here is a perfect example of a boldfaced lie.
The catholics have a lot of taxable church property, time to tax it!
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Here are some real faith-driven criteria:
THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.
It is sin to steal using anchor babies and other tricks to get—or give for votes—free Health & Welfare benefits.
THOU SHALT NOT COVET.
Be grateful; do not envy what’s not yours.
THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS.
Don’t lie and perjure or accept fraudulent documents.
Too bad our gutless leadership wouldn’t see this as an oportunity to easily round up some illegals for deportation.
:::::::
It is much worse than being GUTLESS. They are COMPLICIT and encourage illegals — all at the cost of the American taxpayer and REAL CITIZENS.
Oh, luckystarmom! You really hit the target.
If these “faith-based” people would just spend their energies helping people in Mexico to become self-sufficient, to develop skills, to master basic economic understanding, and then to apply for citizenship legally.... that would be truly Christian.
And, so many of us would be willing to help in that endeavor.
True, but sometime preaching to the choir gets them out of the loft and into their humble public servants’ offices to make sure the situation is remedied!
Some will say Leviticus is archaic, but it seems that the Judeo-Christian tradition has always been built on an essential hospitality for the alien.
Seems to me there's some balance here that is not being struck.
Want to help the illegal alien? Encourage him to turn himself in, return home and apply for legal immigration to this country. Help him to support himself in his own country in the mean time.
Were Jesus to walk around in the U.S. today, he'd be visiting at the homes of illegals, among others. He fraternized with all kinds of lowly types - the poor, prostitutes, etc. He'd never encourage illegal behavior (unless in violation of God's law), but he'd surely forgive them...70x7. Frankly the bulldog, take-no-prisoners attitude I sense from many posters daily is flat-out un-Christlike.
Trying to make a pro-strong borders argument from a Christian perspective is a losing proposition - there is much less evidence on the law-and-order side of the argument.
I won't be voting for McCain because of his weak immigration positions. But, it's not because his positions are more or less 'Christian', it's because they don't jive with law-and-order and the morality of the law, which all comes down to basic justice. McCain's manner ('they are all God's children') is actually much more Christian than most peoples' manner here.
Praying for a Saint to aid in criminal activity? Just what part of Catholicism is that based on?
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