Washington activists condemn immigration raids, call upon faith communities to act
Episcopal News Service. February 4, 2011 [020411-01]
Pat McCaughan
For the first time in nearly two weeks, Ricardo Gonzalez had something to celebrate Feb. 2: his parents -- arrested during an early-morning immigration raid in Ellensburg, Washington -- were home again, at least temporarily.
"We don't know what happens next. They have another court date," said Gonzalez, 17, during a Feb. 2 telephone interview. He recalled awakening to his mother's screams at about 6:45 a.m. on Jan. 20, when immigration officials raided the family home in the city of 17,000 about 90 miles east of Seattle.
"I was half-asleep. I saw the guy with a gun pointed at me," Gonzalez recalled. "There was a light on the gun that was shining in my face. I couldn't see that much. He told me to come out of my bedroom with my hands up in the air. I walked toward him. He handcuffed me. He did the same thing with my younger brother, who's 15."
The Washington New Sanctuary Movement and local faith leaders, including Bishop Greg Rickel of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, condemned the authorities' tactics. A Feb. 3 statement released by the group cited "the separation of parents from young children, the handcuffing of teenagers, the detention of sixteen people more than 100 miles from Ellensburg, the arrest of a church pastor, the detaining of a pregnant woman and the fear sown into an entire community."
More humane treatment and a focus on comprehensive national immigration reform is necessary, Rickel said in a Feb. 2 telephone interview from his office. "I don't speak for everyone in the diocese on this issue, but I signed onto the statement as a plea that, as we enforce whatever laws we have in the country, we do it in a humane way. This is a Christian stance. The way those raids are occurring don't make sense. It's time for immigration reform."
Bishop Scott Hayashi was among a group of Utah clergy recently expressing similar sentiments as the state legislature's 2011 session got underway Jan. 24. The group acknowledged that the immigration system is broken, but said it is the federal government's responsibility, not the state's, to seek solutions.
The Rev. Nancy Appleby, of the peace and justice commission of the Utah diocese, told the Salt Lake Tribune that current laws leave many immigrant families in fear. "Let us not add to the anxiety of these families," she told the Tribune. "As a state and as a people, we are better than that."
Nationally, at least 20 states are considering an immigration enforcement law, many modeled after Arizona's controversial SB 1070, designed to identify, detain and deport undocumented persons, that was scheduled to go into effect on July 29, 2010.
A day earlier, a federal judge blocked enforcement of key parts of the law, ruling it unconstitutional. Still, states from Maine to California are contemplating adapting it for local use, according to an October 2010 report by Immigration Works USA, an immigrant rights group.
Kentucky lawmakers on Feb. 2 heard testimony regarding Senate Bill 6 which, like the Arizona law, authorizes police to try to determine a person's immigration status if he or she is stopped for another reason, such as a traffic violation, and is suspected of being an undocumented immigrant. The measure, approved by state senators, also includes provisions that make it a crime to "harbor or shield" illegal aliens and requires police to seize any vehicle used to transport them, raising concerns of local school and other officials.
But just, humane and comprehensive reform is less likely to happen since the mid-term congressional elections, said Dianne Aid, director of the Jubilee Center at St. Matthew/San Mateo Episcopal Church in Auburn, Washington.
"With the shift in Congress now there's just not a lot of hope out there for comprehensive immigration reform over the next couple of years," said Aid, a steering committee member of the national New Sanctuary Movement.
"We feel like we're out here almost all alone. But we're not going to give up the hope, or the accompaniment [of undocumented persons]," said Aid, who is also director of the Episcopal Network for Economic Justice and, coincidentally, godmother of Ricardo Gonzalez. "[I]n this next couple of years when we know that policy change is not going to be the big push, the faith communities need to continue to be vigilant and to accompany immigrants in this struggle, and provide that hospitality and protection. It's what we're being called on to do and it's what we're called to do."
The Episcopal Church's stance on immigration reform is guided by the policies set out in General Convention resolutions, the most recent being Resolution B006 passed by the 76th General Convention in 2009. The resolution said that the convention recognizes that "all people living in the United States are entitled to protection provided by due process of law and that all immigrants and their families are entitled to receive protection granted by our laws and Constitution." The resolution repeated the church's call for comprehensive immigration reform.
More recently, the House of Bishops, at the conclusion of its September 2010 meeting in Phoenix, told the Episcopal Church that the starting point for any effort towards immigration reform begins with "an obligation to advocate for every undocumented worker as already being a citizen of God's reign on earth and one for whom Christ died." The statement came in a 17-page document titled "The Nation and the Common Good: Reflections on Immigration Reform," which is meant to be used as a theological resource on migration and immigration.
The Episcopal Public Policy Network cited immigration reform as part of an overall 2011 action alert noting, "under new leadership in the House and a new chairman of the subcommittee on immigration, Rep. Gallegly (R-CA), immigration will become a contentious issue.
"A great emphasis will be placed on enforcement and border security. Other members will bring other hot issues, such us the interpretation of the 14th Amendment as a constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship."
In Arizona, efforts have been mounting to change the 14th Amendment so that children born in the United States to undocumented parents will not be granted citizenship, said the Rev. Canon Carmen B. Guerrero, canon for peace and justice in the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona during a Feb. 1 telephone interview from her Phoenix office.
Recently, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's newly formed Illegal Immigration Enforcement Posse arrested 56 alleged undocumented persons during a "sweep," according to a report by the Arizona Republic.
Actor Steven Seagal accompanied the posse and participated in four arrests during the sheriff's 18th crime suppression operation, according to the published report.
Guerrero said the sweeps often amount to little more than harassment of citizens. "Some of the people he's stopping have papers but he detains them anyway until they can provide it. They are taken to jail until they can prove it. If you produce documents, the question is, how do I know if this is a real driver's license?" she said.
She said a parishioner from her Spanish-language congregation at Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix was deported recently. In spite of best efforts to assist her, "she got tired of the humiliation and left her husband and two children here and went back to Mexico. This is what it's like to be Hispanic in Arizona," Guerrero said.
But she added: "In spite of all this, people still come to church and they still have faith. There are times when I want to say 'give it up' you know, and other times when I think they're ministering to me."
In Ellensburg, Ricardo's parents Ramon and Angelica Gonzalez were among 30 people arrested in the early morning raids of three mobile home communities, said the Rev. Ernest Harrelson, rector of St. Michael's Church in Yakima, about 30 miles south of the close-knit community.
Harrelson said activists plan to offer training so residents "will know what to do if they show up at your door. They'll know what their rights are if they've been detained."
But he added that he was hopeful even though "we're constantly on the edge here. People are worried and wondering 'am I going to get picked up or not? Are they going to come and raid my place of employment?'
"If that happened," he added, "we'd lose a big chunk of our workforce. The economy in this area would suffer severely. Yakima Valley is very heavily dependent on migrant labor because we're an agricultural community. There's lots of tension. People are hiding in the shadows. Families are being ripped apart."
For the moment, the Gonzalez family was back together and Ricardo Gonzalez is happy; the next step in the process will be a letter advising them of a hearing date. But in the meantime, "we are all together. We're excited. Our friends and family are here," he said Feb. 2. "We're eating cake."