All Rev'd Up: Immigration Raids Threaten Churches' Status As Sanctuaries

Immigrant Church Sanctuary — In this May 18, 2018 photo, Vicky Chavez plays with her daughter Issabella within the walls of the First Unitarian Church, in Salt Lake City. Chavez, a Honduran woman who came to the U.S. four years ago seeking asylum from an abusive boyfriend says she'll continue taking sanctuary in a Salt Lake City Unitarian church where she's been for the past six months with her two young daughters despite being ordered to leave and exhausting her appeals. Chavez says seeing fellow Central Americans separated from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border makes her intent on trying to fight to stay in the United States.

Zoe Mathews is a producer for Boston Public Radio and the producer of The Scrum podcast.

July 08, 2019

Ever since President Donald Trump threatened mass raids to arrest people in the country illegally, undocumented immigrants are withdrawing from society in fear — vowing to keep their children out of summer programs, staying away from public libraries, and many have stopped attending church services.

This fear has put the religious community at the heart of the sanctuary movement, Reverend Irene Monroe said on Boston Public Radio Monday, as the Trump administration warns of civil penalties to immigrants who disobey deportation ordersby seeking refuges in churches or elsewhere.

"What it has started and has revved up, is really the sanctuary movement. Churches are becoming the front line of that, what I worry about," Monroe said. "There are a couple things, some churches will shy away [from hosting undocumented immigrants] because obviously, they worry about their 501 tax status. But the social gospel mandates as we've heard ... Democratic candidates that have never talked about faith, talk about that biblical mandate Matthew 12:25, that when you were hungry I fed you and sheltered you, and we're hearing all these horrific stories about these shelters, but I worry about these people who are going to church and are undocumented parishioners, and they will shy away."

Emmett G. Price III said churches have a historic status as safe places for marginalized communities, and Trump's actions threaten that.

"From the annals of history, churches have always been sanctuaries. Literally and figuratively, they have been sanctuaries for people who have felt unsafe, for people who have felt ostracized or disenfranchised, for people who have felt their lives and their livelihoods are threatened, that they can come to the church," he said. "And now for the government to have access to penetrate the walls of the church — For the sake of what? To what end? This is horrifying. It's actually galvanizing clergy to come together."

During their conversation on Boston Public Radio, Monroe and Price also discussed former Vice President Joe Biden's apology for his comments about working with segregationist legislators and his spar with fellow Democratic candidate for president Kamala Harris on mandated busing to integrate public schools. They also previewed their upcoming podcast, All Rev'd Up, produced by WGBH.

Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist and the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a Visiting Researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology.

Price is Professor of Worship, Church & Culture and Founding Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Together they host the All Rev’d Up podcast, produced by WGBH.