Churches And Cities Provide Sanctuary To… Immigrants?

Why do immigrants need sanctuary?

Is This Fake News?

By de Andréa

Opinion Editorialist for

‘THE BOTTOM LINE’

Posted May 10, 2017

The media continues to report that ICE is deporting immigrants by the hundreds. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

First “an undocumented immigrant” or an “illegal immigrant” doesn’t even exist. All immigrants are documented by their very definition and therefore legal and documented. Both are a contradiction in terms. But the Communist media would have you believe that President Trump has left the Whitehouse, and is out riding his Whitehorse all over the country side and the fruited plane, rounding up, lassoing, arresting and deporting “immigrants.” If that were the case, my parents and grandparents would be arrested and deported. That is if they were still alive. If in fact ICE was deporting immigrants, today more than 43 million of the U.S. population would be deported. And don’t forget, all of us were originally immigrants. Except maybe the Native Americans… No! Actually they were migrants.

Immigration is a legal process of application, investigation and documentation.

Since President Trump signed an executive order enforcing immigration laws that have existed since…well since America was a nation, false and misleading stories about immigrants seeking refuge at churches have emerged. Again they are not immigrants, they are illegal aliens/criminals. And according to law anyone who harbors a criminal or fugitive is him/herself a criminal.

And the number of US churches willing to offer sanctuary to these so-called immigrants is rising, according to Church World Service. Why do these immigrants seek sanctuary? Not because they are immigrants as CNN the Communist News Network brainwashes the country with my friend, but because they are criminals.

But what good does seeking shelter at a church do?

Do criminals have legal sanctuary at churches?

No, says Stephen Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell Law School.

7 unanswered questions about Trump's immigration plans

Officials with a warrant can arrest illegal aliens regardless of whether they're at a house of worship like a church, synagogue or mosque.

And the Immigration and Nationality Act prohibits anyone from knowingly harboring an illegal alien "in any place, including any building." Those convicted of doing so risk up to five years in prison.

Then why seek, or provide, refuge at a church?

Being able to legally arrest a criminal alien at a church is one thing. Doing so is another.

"I think for publicity reasons, immigration enforcement does not like to go into churches," Yale-Loehr said. So illegals fearing imminent deportation feel somewhat safer there.

Indeed, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said it generally avoids arrests at "sensitive locations," including places of worship. The policy doesn't rule out enforcement there in certain circumstances, such as when a supervisor approves the move, or in instances relating to national security, terrorism or public safety.

ICE says the policy is meant to ensure that people can participate in activities and seek services at sensitive places like churches without hesitation. The policy doesn't particularly say anything about allowing people to stay at sensitive places full time as a shield against arrest.

In general, prosecutors probably won't go after a pastor, "though certainly the law permits that," said Leon Fresco, a former assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice's Office of Immigration Litigation.

Prosecuting refuge-providing pastors "could end up being more damaging than anything else," Fresco said.

How many churches are doing it?

The number of churches that are actively offering refuge -- and where immigrants are taking them up on it -- is unclear. But since Trump was elected in November, the number of churches in the United States expressing willingness to offer sanctuary has doubled to more than 800, according the Rev. Noel Anderson, national grassroots coordinator at Church World Service.

Under Trump, feds still accepting applications from DREAMers

"The faith community in general, after the election, were looking for 'what can we do' to support the immigrant community," Anderson said. "And the sanctuary movement offered a concrete way for people to respond and show support and solidarity with undocumented people."

Offering sanctuary at a church can involve providing food and shelter for an immigrant, as well as staffing volunteers to stay with that person around the clock.

So no pastor has been arrested in a case like this?

Well, arrests and charges aren't plentiful, but they have happened.

What are sanctuary cities, and can they be defunded?

In the mid-1980s, for example, the Rev. John Fife of Arizona and other ministers and lay people were arrested on suspicion of harboring illegal aliens they also were accused of helping people enter the country illegally.

Fife and five others were convicted in federal court in 1986 of conspiring to smuggle people into the country, according to a New York Times account; two others were convicted of concealing, harboring or transporting an illegal alien.

The movement has spread beyond churches.

Some leaders have declared their communities as sanctuary cities or counties. There's no legal definition of a sanctuary city, but such communities generally have policies or laws that limit the extent to which law enforcement and other government employees will go to assist the federal government on immigration matters.

Big city mayors confident they'll remain sanctuaries

Sanctuary city supporters argue, in part, that undocumented immigrants should be shielded from possible deportation when they report crimes.

Some college students have called for their campuses to become, in effect, sanctuaries for undocumented immigrant students. The University of Pennsylvania is among some US colleges that have said they will not share information about undocumented students with immigration authorities unless required by warrant.

In January, Trump signed an executive action to cut finding to cities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials. And yes he can…

THE BOTTOM LINE: It seems the churches have become anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-Semitic and anti-American and suddenly refuse to cooperate and obey immigration laws that have been on the books since 1885, the latest amendment to that was in 1965. Today is 2017 so what after 52 years has all the braindead people ready to fight a new civil war over. Well the immigration laws just haven’t been enforced.

Until now…

Thanks for listening. Now go do the right thing and fight for freedom.

- de Andréa

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The Bottom Line

Wednesday, May 10, 2017