Posted on 05/09/2007 7:13:56 AM PDT by LNewman
The New Sanctuary Movement is offering illegal immigrants the protection of its churches, nationwide and in L.A.
A graphic designer, a gardener, a religious icon salesman, a busboy, a maintenance worker — each of them facing deportation and separation from their families.
These are the faces of the New Sanctuary Movement, which launches today with a goal of underlining the need for making immigration law more humane and curtailing immigration raids that have torn apart hundreds of families nationwide.
The first faith-based sanctuary movement in 25 years is scheduled to be announced today at news conferences led by congregants in Los Angeles, San Diego and New York who are offering their churches to serve as homes for undocumented families ...
The effort was conceived late last year amid a sense of urgency by religious workers alarmed by immigration raids that were detaining as many as 300 people a week in New York alone. For source material, they studied the sanctuary movement of the early 1980s, which housed hundreds of Central Americans seeking refuge from deportation to their homelands, where they faced death squads and war ...
But no sooner had they committed to a new sanctuary movement than they discovered that immigration laws had changed dramatically in two decades, with more immigrants than ever subject to detention. In addition, the nation's undocumented population has since become more diverse, with growing numbers of illegal immigrants not just from the Americas but also from Asia, Africa and Europe ...
Although organizers hoped to unveil the movement with about 100 immigrants taking shelter in dozens of churches nationwide, they discovered it wasn't easy finding families and churches willing to tell their stories to reporters, or accept the legal risks of publicly defying federal law ...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Good. I hope every church they contact refuses to house illegals.
Isn’t it amazing how they try and turn things around and make us the bad guys. Our laws aren’t seperating all those families......they are seperating their families by their actions and breaking our laws. I’m tired of them blaming us for what they do. Our government needs to get with the program, stop talking about this stuff and enforce our immigration laws.......NOW.
If you provide sanctuary to anyone, you are responsible for their actions. It will also cause your city to be inundated by illegals and your crime rate to skyrocket. These do-gooders will cause suffering and death by doing this. Idiots...
Why don’t a few million of us forget to file those extended 1040 forms due in October?
And when the IRS comes calling, simply tell them that we heard that they were taking a cue from immigration officials and their bosses in congress to NOT enforce the alleged tax laws.
Also tell them that, unlike an unknown number of the criminal invaders, we didn’t haul any drugs or WMDs into the country.
Isn’t knowingly harboring illegal aliens a federal crime?
Arrest those who harbor illegal aliens, try them, and put them behind bars.
One or two high profile cases should do the trick.
From FAIR's (Federation for American Immigration Reform> site:
Encouraging and Harboring Illegal Aliens
It is a violation of law for any person to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection in any place, including any building or means of transportation, any alien who is in the United States in violation of law.16 Harboring means any conduct that tends to substantially facilitate an alien to remain in the U.S. illegally.17 The sheltering need not be clandestine, and harboring covers aliens arrested outdoors, as well as in a building. This provision includes harboring an alien who entered the U.S. legally, but has since lost his legal status.
An employer can be convicted of the felony of harboring illegal aliens who are his employees if he takes actions in reckless disregard of their illegal status, such as ordering them to obtain false documents, altering records, obstructing INS inspections, or taking other actions that facilitate the alien’s illegal employment.18 Any person who within any 12-month period hires ten or more individuals with actual knowledge that they illegal aliens or unauthorized workers is guilty of felony harboring. 19
It is also a felony to encourage or induce an alien to come to or reside in the U.S. knowing or recklessly disregarding the fact that the alien’s entry or residence is in violation of the law.20 This crime applies to any person, rather than just employers of illegal aliens. Courts have ruled that “encouraging” includes counseling illegal aliens to continue working in the U.S. or assisting them to complete applications with false statements or obvious “errors”.21 The fact that the alien is a refugee fleeing persecution is not a defense to this felony, since U.S. law and the UN Protocol on Refugees both require that a refugee must report to immigration authorities “without delay” upon entry to the U.S.
The penalty for felony harboring is a fine and imprisonment for up to five years. The penalty for felony alien smuggling is a fine and up to ten years imprisonment. Where the crime causes serious bodily injury or places the life of any person in jeopardy, the penalty is a fine and up to 20 years imprisonment. If the criminal smuggling or harboring results in the death “of any person,” the penalty can include life imprisonment. Convictions for aiding, abetting, or conspiracy to commit alien smuggling or harboring, carry the same penalties. 22 Courts can impose consecutive prison sentences for each alien smuggled or harbored.23 A court may order a convicted smuggler to pay restitution if the alien smuggled qualifies as a “victim” under the Victim and Witness Protection Act.24
Conspiracy to commit the crimes of sheltering, harboring, or employing illegal aliens is a separate federal offense punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 or five years imprisonment.25
More at link.
Thanx
ping
See my tagline.
Criminals supporting criminals.
In the late 1980's I was introduced to a very elderly professor who lived in a huge house. This man was then in his 90's and was ailing but not senile.
After I had spoken with him the woman who took care of him and who had introduced me took me down to the basement. There were two men there from El Salvador living down there, obviously illegal aliens. They shook my hand very nervously, not knowing who I was. It looked like they were working on starting a stained glass business.
At the time I assumed it had something to do with a church run sanctuary movement. I thought that perhaps the woman who took me there was hiding the aliens without the knowledge of the elderly professor. But now that I know more about him I think he probably was in on it.
The war in El Salvador was still going on at this time. I'm not sure why I was trusted to not spill the beans. I would never have known the men were there if I had not been taken to meet them.
GAK! She sounds like California Rep. LoRAZA Sanchez who commented after the first illegal alien march in 2006, “wouldn’t it be great ... if all those people had gone door-to-door one day and registered people to vote in the immigrant communities.”
That’s pretty interesting, isn’t it? Since the Salvation army is now being sued by EEOC for requiring English in their workplace.
Wrong. The silent majority is separating families.
The silent majority needs to stand up and demand that the original intent of the 14th Amendment be restored, allowing the vast majority of these families to stay together during the repatriation process.
And this is to be paid for by whom?
If my church aided and abetted criminals like this I would stop paying tithes and offerings there and change churches...
I dont mind feeding the poor and needy Americans, or real refugees, but I draw the line at supporting law-breaking illegal aliens who sneer and thumb their noses at my country and our laws...
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