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The sanctuary movement experienced a resurgence following the 2016 election, with about 1,000 houses of worship nationwide calling for “holy resistance” to mass deportation policies and pledging to shelter immigrants who face being torn from their families and homes.
Now, two Kansas congregations, Shalom Mennonite Church and First Mennonite Church of Christian, have become the latest houses of worship to join their ranks—even if it means the possibility of church leaders facing persecution and arrest.
“In my upbringing,” said Ben Woodward-Breckbill, associate pastor at Shalom, “I was taught to value this idea that sometimes the church should be a witness to something that can be against a law.”
For congregations, it’s personal. Shalom “voted to become a sanctuary congregation after several years of engaging with the Hispanic community in the area,” including being asked by the pastor of a Latino church if Shalom could help protect a woman who had been arrested and was facing deportation.
Unfortunately, before anything could happen, the woman “ended up being deported and left behind her children who are American citizens.” Rev. Rachel Ringenberg Miller said that “had she had space and time, perhaps she would have been here.” Now both churches, spurred by this national crisis, are set to “undergo renovations to create apartment-style spaces where an immigrant or immigrant family could live.”
“In the story of the Good Samaritan,” said Rev. Laura Neufeld Goerzen of First Mennonite, “Jesus makes it pretty clear that our neighbor is anyone who happens to be in need regardless of their race or nationality. Designating our place as a place of sanctuary felt like a natural outgrowth of our mission.”
Of course, there are still risks for immigrant families and churches. While schools, hospitals, and churches are generally considered “off limits” under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy, agents have been documented to flout their own rule. Additionally, press can help lift the cause of a family facing separation, but then also attract the attention of anti-immigrant groups.
In the weeks that followed Donald Trump’s inauguration, ICE arrested a group of men as they were leaving a hypothermia shelter owned by Rising Hope Mission Church in Virginia. The following March, agents in California stalked and arrested a dad who was dropping two of his children off at their schools. At nearly the same time, agents again flouted their policy to arrest a woman “who was awaiting emergency surgery for a brain tumor” at a hospital in Texas.
Still, it’s a risk immigrants and congregations are willing to take in the name of keeping families together. “Of 37 people who went into public sanctuary in 2017,” The Wichita Eagle reported, “nine left with some sort of deportation reprieve,” including Jeanette Vizguerra, Time’s 100 most influential people honoree. Last year, she won a two year stay of deportation after taking sanctuary in a Denver church for nearly 90 days.
“This is a special day for me,” she said at the time, “because I will be able to celebrate Mother’s Day with my children and my grandchildren. Even though I’ve been continuing the fight from the inside, I have missed my kids—this fight is for them.”