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Cynthetiq · 10-01-2008, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

Someone tried that at my dad's church a few years back. The police walked right in and arrested him.

I don't think that works any more, even for Jean Valjean.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tisonlyi

I don't think hiding out in a church ever really worked except for a few truly Sacred places.

Still works and still happens in many cases. Maybe your police officers had a warrant, or your father didn't stand up enough to the law enforcement officers to DENY them entry to PRIVATE property.

Seems to work in the Philippines, Canda, and, Ohio, Chicago, IL...

Quote:

View: Man claiming sanctuary given OK to leave church
Source: CBC
posted with the TFP thread generator

Man claiming sanctuary given OK to leave church
Man claiming sanctuary given OK to leave church
Last Updated: Monday, December 13, 2004 | 6:30 PM ET
CBC News
A man from Bangladesh who has lived in the refuge of a church in Ottawa since July 2003 is now free to leave it, and can stay in Canada.
Samsu Mia was granted a ministerial permit by Immigration Minister Judy Sgro on Monday, allowing him to leave the First Unitarian Congregation without fear of deportation.

Mia is on his way to becoming a landed immigrant, said MP Marlene Catterall, who delivered the good news at the church in her riding.

Samsu Mia (file photo)

Mia took refuge after failing in his five-year battle for refugee status. He was facing a deportation at the time.

BACKGROUND: The church as sanctuary
Mia has said he can't go back to Bangladesh because of a government official he publicly criticized.

He worked for the Bangladesh High Commission in Ottawa. He claims he was physically and mentally abused by his employer and fears he'll be killed or imprisoned if he's sent back home.

Quote:

View: Illegal entrant claiming sanctuary in Chicago church safe — for now
Source: Azstarnet
posted with the TFP thread generator

Illegal entrant claiming sanctuary in Chicago church safe — for now
Published: 07.13.2008

Illegal entrant claiming sanctuary in Chicago church safe — for now
By Sophia Tareen
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO — Everyone knows where Flor Crisostomo lives, even the federal immigration officials who have ordered her deported to Mexico. The reason they haven't detained her is her address — Adalberto United Methodist Church.
Another woman famously took refuge in that church as she championed immigration reform, and at least 13 other illegal immigrants are doing the same at churches around the country. So far, they have little to fear.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have arrested illegal immigrants by the hundreds in raids at factories, restaurants, malls, farms and meat packing plants, but they have handled cases involving churches delicately.
"Our agency takes enforcement actions when we deem it appropriate," said Julie Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for ICE.
"I am personally not aware of an instance when ICE has gone into a church. That being said, if there was a particular, extremely egregious, ax murderer or something else, that's not to say we would not enforce the law at that time."
Avoiding churches is unofficial policy for federal immigration officials, according to Doris Meissner, a former commissioner at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the agency that oversaw immigration until the Department of Homeland Security was formed in 2003.
Since the 1970s the unwritten rule has been "no churches, no playgrounds, no schools," said Meissner, now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.
Critics say making exceptions for churches, where immigrants openly — and in Crisostomo's case, very publicly — defy deportation, makes the agency look lax.
"These are people who deliberately violated the law," said Dave Gorak, executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration. "We can't even enforce the laws without being criticized as Gestapo."
But Meissner said it wouldn't make sense for the agency to devote resources to arrest the relatively small number of people in sanctuary.
"An agency like ICE has far more work than it can possibly ever do," Meissner said.
"You want to use those resources to thwart as much as possible egregious criminal behavior. A single person in a church doesn't really measure very high on a list."
Crisostomo came to the U.S. in 2000, paying a smuggler in Mexico to get her across the border. She was arrested in 2006 during a raid at a wooden pallet company in Chicago.
She has been at the West Side church for six months, since the Board of Immigration Appeals ordered her to leave the United States, holding news conferences, writing blogs and lecturing school groups about immigration issues.
Adalberto United Methodist gained widespread attention when it offered sanctuary to another immigrant, Elvira Arellano, who used it as a base to champion immigration reform.
Arellano stayed there for a year with her U.S.-born son, and frequently spoke about immigrant rights.
She was arrested and deported to Mexico only after she left her sanctuary last August to travel to a rally in Los Angeles.
"We do conduct enforcement activities at a time and place of the government's choosing," said Myers, ICE's top official.
"With Ms. Arellano, we believe that an appropriate time was when she was kind of traveling outside of the institution."
Arellano has been lauded as a heroine of the New Sanctuary Movement, which calls for immigration reform, and Crisostomo says she's following in Arellano's footsteps.
"We have to show the government that we are many, we are strong, we are humans and that we deserve respect in this country," said Crisostomo. "This is a church that was made to help the fight of people who are undocumented."
The New Sanctuary Movement, which makes living arrangements for illegal immigrants at churches, is modeled after a similar movement for Central Americans in the 1980s.
Its goal is to call attention to immigration reform, but organizers believe sanctuary is a temporary solution, said Kristin Kumpf, a national organizer for the movement.
"The churches have been treated as sacred space," said Kumpf. But "no one can stay in sanctuary forever."

Quote:

View: Church Becomes Sanctuary after Raid
Source: Kcrg
posted with the TFP thread generator

Church Becomes Sanctuary after Raid
Church Becomes Sanctuary after Raid
By Josh Hinkle, Reporter
By Becky Ogann

Story Created: May 14, 2008 at 5:02 PM CDT

Story Updated: May 14, 2008 at 6:22 PM CDT

POSTVILLE - Officials at a Postville Catholic church say hundreds of people are hiding out there in fear of further police action.

The church has definitely become a sanctuary for Postville's Hispanic population. More than 200 people were still there on Wednesday. Many of them are staying overnight because they're afraid to go home.

They know what happened to their family members who worked at Agriprocessors when ICE raided the plant. Now they fear detention or deportation too.

Many here are living here illegally in the U.S. and most that TV9 spoke with don't speak English. Many here also just need food because the bread winner in their family might be locked up at this time.

Church officials and volunteers have stepped in to temporarily fill that void.

"The community is being broken up, families are being broken up. Small children are left alone. Where a mother is left with 2 or 3 little children and the bread winner, who they expected to come home on Monday, left in the morning in the same fashion they left everyday, and they're not coming home, they're just panic stricken," said Sister Mary McCauley, St. Bridget's Catholic Church.

I.C.E. conditionally released 3 women who are now living here because there was no one to take care of their children and one of them is pregnant. You can tell who they are by the electronic tracking devices on their ankles.