Bringing Sanctuary to Trial

By Ellie McGrath

Outside the Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, some 50 miles from the Mexican border, the Rev. John Fife nailed up a neatly painted sign that reads: THIS IS A SANCTUARY FOR THE OPPRESSED FROM CENTRAL AMERICA. Fife is now facing the consequences of that proclamation. This week he and an ecumenical group of ten others, including two Roman Catholic priests and a nun, will go on trial in Tucson on charges of conspiring to transport and shelter Central American aliens. If they are found guilty, the sentences on the conspiracy charges could be as severe as five years in prison and $10,000 fines.

In effect, the nationwide so-called Sanctuary Movement will also be standing trial in Tucson. To date, the campaign has arranged for the housing of an estimated 3,000 Central American refugees in 270 congregations from San Jose to Boston. This activity has not only produced a tense and continuing church-state conflict, it has also disturbed some religious conservatives who accuse Sanctuary of exploiting the refugees for political motives.

The controversial movement got its start at Fife's Southside Church on the second anniversary of the assassination of Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador. The archbishop, because of his bold advocacy of the poor in his country, was gunned down in 1980 while saying Mass in San Salvador. Since then, Sanctuary has drawn support from various religious bodies, including American Baptists, Presbyterians, United Methodists and the United Church of Christ. The movement has also been endorsed by Conservative Judaism's Rabbinical Assembly. Pastors and congregation members who have sheltered refugees within their churches maintain that when these Central American immigrants are deported to their native countries, they are often punished severely. Says Jim Corbett, a Quaker and Sanctuary co-founder, who is among those on trial in Tucson: "We are facing jail, but they are the ones facing torture, murder and violation of their human rights."

As the scriptural authority for giving Sanctuary to the refugees, Christian activists sometimes cite Leviticus 19: 34: "The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself." The concept of asylum flourished in the Middle Ages, when churches and monasteries sheltered most criminals from their pursuers for up to 40 days, until the fugitive chose either exile or surrender to civil authority. The 19th century U.S. underground railroad, which smuggled slaves from the South to safety, could be regarded as a unique American application of the biblical injunction. Sanctuary supporters also believe that their actions are justified by the 1980 U.S. Refugee Act, which declares that persons with "a well-founded fear of persecution" should be granted refugee status.

The Federal Government, however, maintains that the Central American aliens are fleeing from economic want rather than persecution. Says Laura Dietrich, a State Department official: "Coming from a country with generalized conditions of poverty and civil unrest is not enough." Last year the U.S. granted asylum to 503 Salvadorans. In the same year agents apprehended 18,920 and deported 3,890, but thousands more remain while they complete the appeals process. By contrast, in the same year 45 Soviets were granted asylum and 43 were refused. Judge Earl Carroll, who is presiding at the Tucson trial, has already announced that he will not allow any defense based upon religious or political beliefs. Says Prosecuting Attorney Donald Reno: "It's going to be tried as an alien-smuggling case, not as a referendum on U.S. policy in Central America."

Some critics of the Sanctuary Movement charge that its adherents are on a misguided crusade, acting as an unwitting supplier of cheap labor in the U.S. (Many of the refugees do end up working as janitors, maids and dishwashers.) Others complain that Sanctuary is abetting Marxist movements by giving a platform to some left-wing refugees who want to denounce U.S. imperialism. The Rev. Richard Neuhaus, a Lutheran minister who is director of New York City's Center on Religion and Society, says of Sanctuary: "It's political theater."

To some Sanctuary activists, morality can override politics. Gary Cook, associate pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church in Massillon, Ohio, says, "We're a very conservative group of folks politically. But once we encountered the refugees face to face, we couldn't justify not taking them in." Notes the Rev. William Sloane Coffin of Riverside Church in New York City: "We don't apologize for the political aspect. God is concerned not just with your sins and my sins, but with the sins of the nation."

The Immigration and Naturalization Service gathered evidence for the Tucson trial during a nine-month operation dubbed "Sojourner," in which informants joined church meetings and sometimes even participated in transporting fugitives. An ecumenical coalition is pressing a civil suit, which will be heard in December in San Francisco, against INS Commissioner Alan Nelson and U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, charging that government prosecutions interfere with Sanctuary workers performing their religious duties. Says Fife: "This is the first time in the history of our nation that the Government has acknowledged under oath that it has infiltrated church worship services and Bible study sessions with paid agents."

Sanctuary activists are hoping that what they call a "crackdown on compassion" will be made unnecessary by passage of the DeConcini-Moakley proposal, now in congressional judiciary committees, which would grant temporary residence to Salvadoran refugees. Meanwhile, the knotty question of whether religious convictions can justify civil disobedience seems certain to continue fueling disputes within congregations and conflict between the U.S. Government and religious activists.

With reporting by Carol Ann Bassett/Tucson and JoAnn Lum/New York