CRACKDOWN ON SANCTUARY The Underground Railroad Surfaces
Bosniak, Lindie & Rasmussen, Jane
Editorial note: Since this article was written, Stacy Merkt was convicted on all three felony counts. Sentencing is scheduled for June 27th. Sister Diane Muhlenkamp, of the Indiana-based...
...Yet the Administration has so far rejected petitions from Congress and a broad spectrum of individuals, organizations and community groups asking that Salvadoreans be permitted to find temporary safe haven in this country, and the deportations continue en masse...
...If you aid them here you become afelon...
...The willingness of the church in Latin America to stand with the poor, the tortured and the oppressed is a very powerful example," says David Chevrier, pastor at Chicago's Wellington Avenue Church...
...Yet if they don't take action, the sanctuary movement will continue to help turn public opinion against U.S...
...Feeling virtually certain they will be sent home after a long incarceration, many opt to return at once...
...Jim Corbett, a Quaker and one of the founders of the sanctuary movement, similarly states, "For those of us who would be faithful in our allegiance to the Peaceable Kingdom, there's also no way to avoid recognizing that in this case collaboration with the U.S...
...They deem this to be a local matter...
...The fifteen-car caravan left Chicago on March 16 and arrived in Weston, Vermont on March 24, doubled in size...
...But as a practical matter, we have more than we can handle apprehending illegal aliens at the worksite," said David Ilchert, northern California regional director of INS...
...Yet in spite of its disparaging portrayal of the movement, INS has always emphasized its legal right to take action whenever it sees fit...
...Ezell added that his office would be clearing its statements with INS Commissioner Alan C. Nelson in Washington...
...Immigration judges and the INS consistently interpret the Refugee Act in extremely narrow terms, thus rendering most applicants ineligible for asy- lum...
...The government is aware that the real goal of the movement is not to proliferate sanctuaries and clandestine transportation relays for Central American refugees...
...These and other violations of the refugees' due process rights are being challenged by a class action suit in Los Angeles, Orantes-Hernandez v. Smith...
...Nevertheless, the decision by the government to prosecute was deliberate and marks an end to the practice of avoiding confrontation with sanctuary activists...
...For more information, write CARDF, 558 Capp Street, San Francisco, CA 94110, (415) 285-8040...
...Such routine checks are common to the border area...
...I can tell you truthfully I have not talked to a single person from the Department of Justice...
...attorney for Tucson held a press conference on March 28 in which he responded to questions about the directives he has received on the case from Washington...
...Central Americans are treated as illegal aliensor economic refugees-and afforded no recognition as persons fleeing from persecution in countries at war...
...law through the Refugee Act of 1980...
...This "extended voluntary departure status" has been extended to refugees of many countries over the years, and is currently in effect for persons from Poland, Afganistan, Lebanon, Uganda and Ethiopia...
...Rather, its goal is to eliminate their necessity by stopping the U.S.-funded war in Central America...
...government is a betrayal of our faith...
...Underground Railroad Surfaces In response to the arrests of the Texas sanctuary workers, sanctuary and underground railroad activists organized a public car caravan carrying a Guatemalan refugee family of seven to sanctuary...
...On March 13, the religious workers were charged with three felony counts, while the decision to indict Dallas Times Herald reporter Jack Fischer was delayed, pending further investigation...
...On the contrary, it has been escalating attacks against exiles and curtailing their meagre legal resources...
...They were detained along with four Salvadoreans...
...Their bond was posted by Lutheran church groups...
...The case will be tried this summer...
...The Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America On February 17, Diane Muhlenkamp, a Catholic nun, and Stacy Merkt, a lay worker at Oscar Romero House--a diocesan-supported refugee center for Central American refugees-were detained at 4 a.m...
...law for providing shelter to refugees or for participating in the underground railroad...
...Muhlenkamp and Merkt were released on personal recognizance bonds and are currently awaiting trial, which, according to their attorneys, will probably be set in May or June...
...The United States does have a specific legal mechanism for allowing persons escaping violence and persecution to remain here until hostilities in their home countries have ceased...
...involvement in Central America...
...The United States signed the United Nations Protocol on the Status of Refugees in 1967 and its principles were integrated into U.S...
...If you aid refugees in Central America you become a subversive or dead...
...foreign policy concerns, the State Department routinely recommends against granting political asylum to Salvadoreans and Guatemalans...
...Though the injunction is still in effect, violations commony occur...
...Renny Golden, a founding member of the task force, estimates that well over 70,000 people could be charged with defying U.S...
...He has been charged with transporting illegal aliens...
...The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the forcible return of refugees to their country of origin...
...Late last year Congress adopted a resolution calling upon the president to grant extended voluntary departure status to Salvadorean refugees who have been in the United States since January 1983...
...We are permitted to enter church property with a proper warrant of inspection...
...policy in Central America among church groups and in the public at large...
...Those who have chosen to participate do so out of an allegiance to a moral imperative which, under current conditions, entails risking imprisonment, fines and felony records...
...attorney's office is more reluctant to proceed with the case since it is aware that sanctuary efforts enjoy significant local support...
...Justice Department wants to use the arrests as an opportunity to crack down on the nationwide sanctuary movement, while the local U.S...
...The six were stopped in an automobile registered to the Southside Presbyterian Church, site of the first sanctuary declared in the United States on March 24, 1982...
...Violates International Law In 1981, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for RefuCarol Larsen of Wheavon United Methodist with an arriving Salvadorean in 1982...
...According to Renny Golden, the organizers decided that if it was no longer safe to transport refugees clandestinely, they would surface the railroad, forcing the Reagan Administration to make public "the sinister nature of its deportation policy," and with it, "its bloody foreign policy...
...journey to sanctuary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the Old Cambridge Baptist Community was awaiting them...
...The U.S...
...Jury selection for the refugees' trial is scheduled to take place on May 3. If convicted, they will likely be subpoenaed to testify as material witnesses at the trial of the 4 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 4 REPORT ON THE AMERICASreligious workers...
...It is difficult to calculate the numbers of individual asylum applications that have been submitted, and of these, how many have been approved and denied, because INS no longer keeps such records...
...Yet since 1980, more than 35,000 Salvadoreans have been deported from the United States...
...The offensive against the sanctuary movement in Texas has not stopped with these arrests...
...government until the Texas arrests does not, however, mean that the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been entirely passive with respect to the growing support movement for Central American refugees...
...Each of them was questioned and registered, and all their belongings confiscated...
...Sister Diane Muhlenkamp, of the Indiana-based Poor Hand Maids of Jesus Christ, chose not to stand trial with Merkt...
...along with three Salvadoreans and a journalist near San Benito, Texas...
...In pre-trial plea bargaining, Muhlenkamp agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for a government promise that charges will not be brought against her for one year...
...The political costs involved in prosecuting large numbers of religious workers and dragging refugees out of churches before national television cameras would be high...
...A second set of arrests occurred on March 7th near Nogales, Arizona...
...Sanctuary and the Law Those involved in the sanctuary movement know full well that the act of providing refuge for Central Americans fleeing their countries is defined as a felony by U.S...
...God will not strike us dead if we go in...
...Historically, the churches played a critical role in the underground railroad for runaway slaves during the last century, and were also in the fore- front of the movement to provide pro- tection for conscientious objectors and AWOL servicemen during the Vietnam War...
...The cases have proceeded differently in the two states, however...
...Border Patrol detained religious lay workers Phil Conger and Katherine Flaherty, who, at the time of their arrest, were acting as representatives of several congregations in Tucson which provide sanctuary and transportation relays for Salvadorean and Guatemalan refugees...
...Available figures indicate that a significant number of repatriated refugees are found deadusually with signs of torture-within a few months of their return...
...others lack access to legal resources to help them file their claims...
...It is this underlying objective, and the potential of the movement to help achieve it, that represents its true challenge to the government and the real strength of its work...
...Moreover, many refugees never apply for asylum...
...The government's most recent tactic in its offensive against the refugees and their defenders is the transferral of large numbers of apprehended aliens to detention centers in remote rural areas, where their bond redetermination and deportation hearings also take place...
...The government is currently holding three Salvadorean refugees who received assistance from members of the underground railroad and sanctuary communities in the Rio Grande area...
...In keeping with U.S...
...On May 14--the day of Merkt's conviction-Phil Conger learned that the government had decided to charge him with four counts of transporting illegal aliens...
...U.S...
...Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officials stopped their car-owned by the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville, Texas-without a warrant...
...If we thought it was a significant problem, then maybe we'd take a look at it...
...These episodes mark the first direct attacks leveled against the church-led movement to provide U.S...
...church people say too that they've been challenged to re-examine their moral and political obligations at home by the witness of Central American Christians...
...A Federal District Court judge in Los Angeles ordered a preliminary injunction against these practices in April 1982 while the case is pending...
...here they're deportable illegal aliens...
...Father Wally Kusuboski, a defense attorney for arrested lay worker Stacy Merkt, says the government is expected to use these refugees as material witnesses to try to bring indictments against three or four more sanctuary workers in the Rio Grande valley...
...Nevertheless, those Central Americans who apply for political asylum have little chance of success...
...Less Than 4% Granted Asylum The compelling force behind the sanctuary movement has been U.S...
...Bill Joyce, assistant general counsel to the INS told the Christian Science Monitor in 1982 that "this [the sanctuary movement] is just a political thing that the churches are dreaming up to get publicity, a game to pressure the government to allow Salvadoreans to stay here...
...MAY/JUNE 1984 5 MAY/JUNE 1984 5Sanctuary is a concept which has a long and solid tradition in Judeo-Christian doctrine...
...The Texas authorities don't seem as concerned with the movement's popular support...
...According to the Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America-clearinghouse for much of the nation's sanctuary activity-in only two years, the movement has grown to embrace over 1 10 congregations of almost all religious denominations...
...When the government itself sponsors the torture of entire peoples and then makes it a felony to shelter those seeking refuge, law-abiding protest merely trains us to live with atrocity...
...U.S...
...Whether or not the federal authorities plan to launch an all-out offensive against the sanctuary movement is still not apparent...
...Refugees are often physically or verbally abused during arrest and while in detention, and attorneys are routinely denied access to their clients...
...We're not going to let it fall through the cracks...
...sanctuary to Salvadorean and Guatemalan refugees...
...government refusal to recognize Salvadoreans and Guatemalans as bona fide refugees...
...For example, INS commonly coerces Salvadoreans into waiving their rights, including the right to counsel, the right to a hearing and the right to apply for political asylum...
...The Central American Refugee Project in San Francisco recently re- ceived a letter from a deported Salvadorean who reports that upon arrival at San Salvador airport, all the deportees were separated from the other passengers and detained by the police...
...But there are plenty of illegal aliens out there...
...Despite threats, the government has brought no charges against them...
...According to Conger, who is Project Director for the Tucson Ecumenical Council Task Force on Central America, the U.S...
...The protocol and the Refugee Act require the United States to grant political asylum to anyone who possesses a well-grounded fear of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion...
...Such practice, according to the UNHCR report, is in violation of the UN Protocol on the Treatment of Refugees, which bans the deportation of a refugee to a country where persecution is likely to occur...
...That the sanctuary movement did not face notable harrassment by the U.S...
...The connection between faith and what the church is doing in Central America is very important...
...Jane Rasmussen, an attorney, is CARDF's executive director...
...Obviously aware of the sanctuary activity, they chose not to act...
...By their presence and their personal testimonies, refugees in communities throughout the country help increase the already deep-felt opposition to U.S...
...Besides aiding thousands of Central American refugees by providing them with shelter, transportation to sanctuary in other locations and other material assistance, the two-year old movement has proved to be an important educational and mobilizing tool against U.S...
...Moreover, the DeConcini-Moakley Bill introduced last November essentially calls for the halting of all deportations of Salvadoreans until the situation in their country is such that they may return safely...
...They each face up to 15 years imprisonment and $15,000 in fines if convicted...
...Their fearlessness in the face of incredible intimidation and terror, torture and death...
...Behind the delay appears to lie a sharp difference of opinion between local and Washington-based federal officials about whether to press for convictions...
...After being held for several hours, Conger and Flaherty were released from custody...
...The movement has also begun to find fertile ground in universities...
...By most accounts, Muhlenkamp and Merkt's encounter with the law was accidental...
...We are breaking the laws of our government because of a higher moral law . . . the need to save the lives and protect the liberty of these refugees," explains Dick Simpson of Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ in Chicago...
...Individuals convicted of harboring, transporting and conspiring to transport persons not lawfully in the United States face up to five years in jail and a $2,000 fine per alien for each count...
...We're treating it as a local matter, and it's not being orchestrated by anyone anywhere...
...Kusuboski believes that the government is attempting to close down the underground railroad in Texas, thus preventing Salvadoreans from making it further north...
...According to The New York Times, at least one church joins the sanctuary movement weekly, while hundreds of others help by providing food, clothing and other assistance...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 6gees (UNHCR) found that the United States has engaged in a "systematic practice" of returning Salvadoreans to their country, regardless of the merits of their claims for asylum...
...And the movement continues to grow...
...It makes what we're doing so little and the strength needed to do it so minimal in light of it...
...That has not deterred the mushrooming of the movement...
...On February 21, the Graduate Student Assembly at the University of California at Riverside declared the university an extended stop on the underground railroad, and other California graduate schools have since met to consider doing the same...
...In recent months, for instance, most Salvadoreans detained in San Francisco have been sent to a holding facility in Florence, Arizona...
...The six were picked up during the first leg of the Salvadoreans' Lindie Bosniak is a legal worker and collaborator with San Francisco's Central American Refugee Defense Fund (CARDF...
...But according to Lou DeSitter, Legal Services coordinator of the El Rescate refugee center in Los Angeles, of the total number of cases decided in the last three years, less than 4% of the applicants were granted po- litical asylum...
...The most widely known case of the death of a deported Salvadorean is that of Santana Chirino Amaya...
...Such a practice isolates the refugees from any family, friends and other support systems they may have in this country, and renders it virtually impossible for them to gain access to legal assistance and to bond out of jail while they await their deportation hearings...
...Churches "Playing Games" Until the Texas and Arizona incidents, the Immigration and Naturalization Service had apparently sought to avoid confrontation with the sanctuary movement...
...In addition to the international obligations created by the Refugee Protocol, international humanitarian law defines Salvadoreans and Guatemalans who have fled their countries as refugees of armed conflict...
...In Central America, refugees are subversives...
...The cars were covered with signs calling for "INS Hands Off" and "Save Central American Refugees...
...The refugees were charged with the misdemeanor crime of entry without inspection...
...Chirino Amaya was found decapitated in the department of San Vicente one month after his deportation from the United States...
...involvement in Central America...
...On April 13, INS arrested Jack Elder, directer of Casa Oscar Romero...
...In contrast, the U.S...
...CARDF, a project of the National Lawyers Guild, provides information for and maintains communication with lawyers, legal workers and others involved in social service and legal policy advocacy for Central American refugees...
...Although the United States has failed to comply with international law, the Reagan Administration has made no move to remedy the situation...
...They were released on $9,000 bond each, an unusually high amount for persons charged only with illegal entry...
...Some are coerced into waiving their rights by signing "voluntary departure" forms...
...Each congregation or community that considers providing sanctuary painstakingly examines the decision to challenge U.S...
...The caravan received significant media attention and public support along the way, and the authorities did not interrupt or harrass the caravan in any manner...
...The INS Regional Commissioner for Los Angeles, Harold Ezell, characterized the case as "extremely sensitive and of great import to the Immigration Service...
Vol. 18 • May 1984 • No. 3
