A faith-based approach to undocumented immigration[South Texas]

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.

“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.”

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.”

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.”

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.

Note that illegal aliens don’t grant due process to the women they rape, the workers they displace, the taxpayers who pockets are picked for their benefits, or the sick or injured who are pushed to the back of the line at the emergency room.

“If immigrants need help, we will do all we can to help them out.”

"If ~~immigrants~~ illegal aliens need help, we will do all we can to help them out.”

(There...fixed it...sure wish they'd learn to distinguish between those playing by the rules and those who ignore them...)

Read futher on down in your Bible, He also told them to “go, and sin no more.”

I don't think 'sinning' includes breaking man's laws. Maybe 'thou shalt not bear false witness' would qualify. And, furthermore, would Jesus be for or against amnesty? Once amnesty is granted, that's the law, so according to most opinions here, Jesus would then be for amnesty - for following man's laws.

Jesus has an infinitely more forgiving spirit than he has a litiguous spirit. I'd be very surprised if he'd be for deporting 12-30 million illegals, even though I personally am.

“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.”

I also invoke a *Romo* when praying on Sunday afternoons.

St. Anthony Romo

My wise old grandfather used to tell me, "two wrongs never make a right." We grant due process to all criminals,, including illegal aliens, because not to do so makes us uncivilized. It is called taking the high road. Deny them due process and you are as bad as they are.

Isn’t it more Christ-like to help them in their homelands, rather than assist them in illegally entering this country?

If Christian missionaries are spreading the gospel to every tribe and every nation, they have to go to other lands to do it, not sit in America and have everyone come to here to hear “the good news”.

I respectfully disagree. Illegal aliens are not granted due process for their illegal presence. Failure to provide a 300 dollar an hour lawyer go everyone who can stand on the edge of land between the fence and the border does not make me, or any US citizen a rapist.

You don’t believe that, now? Do you?

I firmly believe we need as part of our effort to retain control of California, strong walls, defended as necessary by deadly force. If Mexico is not part of the solution, then the US must take control of a strip of Mexican border to prevent it from being used as a base for operations against the US, until the Mexican government can take control and prevent such use.

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