99% Invisible - 249- Church (Sanctuary, Part 1)

Episode Date: March 1, 2017

In the 1980s, Rev. John Fife and his congregation at Southside Presbyterian Church began to help Central American migrants fleeing persecution from US backed dictatorships. Their efforts would mark the beginning of a new — and controversial — social movement … Continue reading →

This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. In July 1980, a group of Salvadoran migrants crossed the border from Mexico into Arizona. They walked over an isolated mountain range and halfway across a wide desert valley. There were more than two dozen of them, people who had left behind lives and jobs to come to the United States. They'd hired some guides to lead them on the journey. Reporting our story this week is Delaney Hall. And those guides had brought them to a largely uninhabited part of the border. It was a vast, empty, and fatally hot stretch of the Sonoran Desert.

The temperature of the next day got up to around 1,215 degrees out there. It was deadly. This is John Fife. He's a Presbyterian minister from Tucson, which is a couple of hours from where the migrants crossed. They were in the middle of the most desolate and deadly area of the desert. And I think out of the group of 26, 12 of them died the first day out.

The survivors were eventually found, delirious and suffering from intense dehydration and heatstroke. Some of them had stripped off their clothes. Border Patrol agents brought them to a hospital in Tucson, which is where Reverend John Fife met them. And they asked some of us who were pastors to provide some pastoral care for the survivors who were traumatized beyond understanding. And they began to tell me why they'd fled El Salvador. At that point, Reverend Fife had lived in Tucson for more than ten years, leading a small congregation at a church called Southside Presbyterian. He didn't know much

about Central America or what was going on in countries like Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador around this time. Not only ignorant but I couldn't have put El Salvador on a map. I knew it was somewhere between Mexico and Panama but that was the extent of my knowledge. So I had a lot to learn and a lot of catching up to do. The people of El Salvador are caught in a web of terror, trapped between the military forces of the Iranian government and the guerrilla forces of the FMLN. No one is safe in this civil war. El Salvador's civil war had been decades in the making.

Since the early 1900s, the country had been ruled by a series of oligarchs and corrupt military leaders. They maintained control by repressing large segments of the rural population. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a number of left-wing guerrilla groups began to grow in power and influence. The military responded by trying to crush this resistance.

Death squads targeted union leaders, community organizers, and other people they suspected of sympathizing with the guerrillas. That included priests and nuns. Lots of civilians were caught in the middle of this violence. Thousands of people were disappeared, murdered, or displaced. Today, the Salvadoran people continue to suffer as a persistent pattern of brutal human rights violations

grips the nation. And El Salvador wasn't the only country where this was happening. Similar conflicts were unfolding in Nicaragua and Guatemala, where authoritarian governments were facing pressure from left- wing rebels. This is the history Reverend John Fife started to learn about. When he met the Salvadoran migrants who'd nearly died in the desert near Tucson.

Well, basically, they were telling me why they'd fled El Salvador. About threats from death squads, killings of members of their family or close friends, that sort of thing. And the reason why they'd had to flee. He didn't know it then, but Reverend Fife was witnessing the beginning of something big. Hundreds of thousands of Central Americans were trying to get away from these dangerous and bloody civil wars. They were fleeing their countries, making their way through Mexico and crossing into the United States.

So, a major migration of refugees occurred along this border during that 10-year period, beginning in 1980. Reverend Fife's church sat less than 100 miles from the border, and it would be completely swept up in this crisis. Eventually, five in his congregants would give shelter to hundreds of Central Americans, they'd be joined by a network of churches across the country, all opening their doors and giving migrants a safe place to stay. This would mark the beginning of a new and controversial social movement based on the old religious concept of sanctuary, the idea that churches have a duty

to shelter people fleeing persecution. More than 6,000 people have signed up to provide sanctuary around the country. So, today cracks down on so-called sanctuary cities. There are... There's been a lot of talk about sanctuary in the news recently. And the modern movement in the US can trace its roots back to Reverend Fife. We're going to spend the next two episodes

looking at how the Sanctuary movement started and how it caused one of the biggest showdowns between church and state in recent history. After that first encounter with the Salvadorans at the hospital, Reverend Fife began to see more and more Central Americans arriving in Tucson. Some of them would come to his church and ask for help. And at first his inclination was to work within the rules of the immigration system. I was pretty naive at that point.

And I went to the immigration office here in Tucson, met with the director and said, we're seeing refugees who are fleeing for their lives. What do we need to do to protect them? And he said, well, we have good political asylum law in the books. And if they're deserving of political asylum, if they're refugees, they'll get political asylum. A asylum you apply for if you are within the United States and have a well-founded fear of persecution, I'm talking law here. This is Ruth Ann Meyers.

I was district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service for Arizona in 1984 and a couple years later they added Nevada. Since 1980, when Congress passed the Refugee Act, the U.S. has asked people to meet a number of requirements in order to be granted political asylum. They have to establish that they fear persecution in their home country, based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group. They also have to convince immigration that their government is actually involved in their persecution, or that it can't control the groups that are. If someone shows up in the U.S. and they can meet those requirements, they're supposed to be able to stay, but it's not always that simple.

Myers used to interview people seeking asylum, and she says it could be tough to establish a person's status. It relied heavily on a single individual's testimony about what they'd been through. It depends on the individual. It depends on what they say and how they say it. And if they have any backing, so basically it was my decision based on my experience and what the person said. Because as you can understand There was very little physical evidence of this

Despite the challenges of qualifying for asylum Reverend five in his church raised some money and organized legal assistance for the migrants They started visiting detention centers and helping people fill out asylum applications They'd range for lawyers to represent them in court But it began to seem like even the people who met the requirements for a asylum were not getting it, like even in cases where there was physical evidence. I can remember taking in a guy who had been tortured in El Salvador, and we flew in and amnesty international doctor who testified that the, yeah, this guy's been tortured.

I'm an expert on the physical effects of torture. And the immigration judge would order him to port it the next day. Reverend V began to wonder what was behind these decisions to deport. Central Americans hoping for asylum faced some significant hurdles. For one thing, just as they began turning up along the US Mexico border in 1980, tens of thousands of refugees from other places like Cuba and Iran were also seeking refuge in the United States. The government was overwhelmed with applications. Most Central Americans had also historically come to the US for jobs, not because of political

persecution. The government was more inclined to see them as economic migrants. And on top of that, there was the Cold War. Mr. Speaker, distinguished members of the Congress, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, I've got to say, down below Mexico that can't possibly constitute a threat to our well-being. And that's why I've asked for this session. Central America's problems do directly affect the security and the well-being of our own people. And Central America is an important front in the Cold War. A region so close to the U.S. that our national security required us to stop communist movements

from flourishing there. Nicaragua is just as close to Miami, San Antonio, San Diego and Tucson as those cities are to Washington where we're gathered tonight. Just a few years earlier, in 1979, a socialist revolution actually did happen in Nicaragua. The Sandinista National Liberation Front had ousted a U.S. backed dictatorship, which enrolled the country for decades. At the time of this speech, the Reagan administration was sending aid to Contras fighting the new socialist Sandinista government, and the U.S. was also doing its best to suppress similar left-wing movements in El Salvador and

Guatemala, which went backing the authoritarian governments that still had a grip on power in those countries. In summation, I say to you that tonight there can be no question, the national security of all the Americas is at stake in Central America. Thank you. I bless you, good luck. So here's how this all connects back to Tucson and the deportations that Reverend Fife was seeing Because the US government considered the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala to be political allies in the fight against communism

It denied these governments were persecuting their own people De Regan almost all Salvadoran and Guatemala border crossers were classified not as political refugees But as economic migrants that meant they didn't qualify for asylum Salvatore and Guadalman border crossers were classified not as political refugees, but as economic migrants. That meant they didn't qualify for asylum. They got sent back. Ruth Ann Meyers, the former INS director in Arizona, says immigration officers followed policy set by the government, which has broad discretion when it comes to asylum decisions.

The immigration officers, whether it be enforcement or the asylum officers or whatever, were not making up their criteria or the law. This all came from Congress. The result of this policy was stark when it came to Salvadorans and Guatemalans. Between 1983 and 1986, fewer than 3% of Salvadorans in Guatemalans who applied for asylum were approved. In that same period, the approval rate for Iranians was 60%. For Afghans fleeing the Soviet invasion, it was close to 40%. Back in Tucson, that put Reverend Fife and his congregants in a tough position.

They didn't want to encourage migrants to report immigration when they knew it was almost certain they'd be deported. So they held a series of meetings to figure out what to do. And that's when Jim Corbett started showing up. It's hard to describe Jim because he was a unique figure. Jim Corbett died in 2001, but back in the 80s, he lived on the edge of Tucson. He raised goats and he knew a lot about philosophy.

He was also a quaker, and as the refugee crisis in Tucson continued to grow, Jim's religious faith compelled him to take action. He'd started letting refugees stay at his house, and in some of the ramshackle trailers scattered around his property. So Jim starts coming to meetings as house side-price butarian church where they're discussing the deportations. And after one of those meetings, Jim comes up to Reverend V. And his contention at that point to me was, John, I don't think we have any choice under

the circumstances, except to begin to smuggle people safely across the border so that they're not captured and detained and deported. My response was how the hell do you figure that, Jim? And he explained. Jim explained that they needed to consider two moments in history. The first was back in the 1800s, when church people, a lot of them Quakers, helped move runaway slaves across state lines and through the underground railroad to safety.

And he basically said, we have to conclude from history that they got it right. Those were the folks who understood and got it right. Then Jim pointed to the church and its failure to protect Jewish people fleeing the Holocaust in the 1930s and 40s. Many Jews were detained and deported back to Germany where they were killed. Jim argued that Christians should have done more to protect them. And he said they failed. They failed completely.

As people of faith faith as the church. And I said, yeah, you're right. And his punchline was, John, I don't think we can allow that to happen on our border and in our time. And after a couple of sleepless nights, I went back to him and said, yeah, you're right. I cannot be a pastor of a church here on the border and not do what you're asking. So, sign me up.

At this point, Jim Corbett had already done some border runs on his own, picking up migrants in Mexico and helping them cross the border into the United States. But now, Reverend Fife and a handful of others started helping him. At first, they'd bring people across and put them up at Jim's house, but it quickly became clear they needed more space. So once again, Jim came to talk with Revereign 5. He wanted the church to start hosting people. That was a question that the whole congregation had to deal with.

And that's not an easy choice for people to make. They talked and prayed, and then voted to let Central American refugees stay at the church. Soon on any given night, the church would have dozens of people sleeping in the main gathering space. Church members would provide food, clothes,

English lessons, medical care, and access to legal advice. They'd help the refugees strategize about what to do next. It wasn't as if the migrants were entirely safe. They were still undocumented and faced possible deportation. But they had access to resources, guidance, and a place to stay. The congregation at Southside was drawing on a long religious tradition when they decided to take the refugees into their church. It's actually an ancient tradition of temples and churches and synagogues and sacred sites of indigenous peoples that goes back as far as any history we know about. In Greek and Roman history, people who were threatened with persecution could find protection in temples. When the Roman Empire became Christian, churches took on the same function.

The concept of sanctuary can also be found in medieval canon law and British common law. And as nation states evolved in Europe, some of those nations legally recognized the right of churches to shelter people. More recently, churches sheltered conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War. But even though Reverend Fife was drawing on a long religious tradition, he and his congregants were still harboring undocumented immigrants who crossed into the country illegally, and as it turns out, the government was keeping an eye on their growing operation.

Well, what do we do under those circumstances? And the only conclusion we came to was, well, the only choice we have is to go public with what we're doing. They thought maybe by going public, the church could generate attention and public support. They invited a couple of other churches Church could generate attention and public support. They invited a couple of other churches to join them in a public announcement, and in March

of 1982, they hung two huge banners on the front of the Church. They said, in Spanish, this is a sanctuary of God for the oppressed of Central America. And immigration, do not profane the sanctuary of God. They held a service and publicly welcomed a new family from El Salvador to join the other refugees who are staying at the church. And they staged a press conference to explain exactly what the sanctuary movement was and what their goals were.

So yeah, we, we made some national news. In the American Southwest, the sanctuary movement has become a highly emotional issue. Supporters of that movement, mainly church people, help refugees from Central America. All members of the so-called sanctuary movement that offers aid, comfort, and shelter to illegal aliens from the same. About 200 churches across the United States have joined the sanctuary movement, vowing to violate the laws if necessary.

As the movement gained visibility, it became more controversial. The federal government contends conscience is not a good excuse for violating the law. Our objection to any such movement is that it takes the law into its own hands. They are not wrong. Despite these government objections, the movement continued to grow.

More and more churches in Senegal started to get in touch with Reverend Fife. They'd call us and say, can you send us a family? We're going to declare sanctuary. A network started to develop, which meant Reverend Fife and Jim Corbett had to figure out how to safely transport refugees across the country to the churches that could support them. And so Jim and I basically sat down here with a map of the United States and said, okay, who do you know in Albuquerque and who do you know in Denver and who do you know in

across the United States so we could move people. And we literally in one afternoon figured out an underground railroad and we modeled it on the old underground railroad. By the mid-1980s, hundreds of churches and synagogues across the country had joined the sanctuary movement. Almost every mainstream church denomination had gotten involved, including Lutherans, Methodists, and Baptists. Sanctuary volunteers came from a wide variety of political viewpoints, including conservative, but everyone shared a belief that churches needed to respond to the Central American crisis. These American churches were connected to a network of churches that extended down into Mexico and Central America. So migrants could plug into this network and make their way north. Some would find shelter in Mexico, others would continue into the US.

That's exactly what Patricia Barcelo did. My name is Patricia Barcelo, I am a refugee from Maramala in I live in the United States since 1985. Patricia grew up in Guatemala City, and her parents were union organizers during the Civil War, which made them a target of the government. They labeled my dad and my mom as being involved in subversive acts

in wanting to overthrow the government. And that was enough for them to kill you, disappear you, or do whatever they wanted to do to you. At one point, Patricia's dad disappeared for many weeks. He'd been kidnapped by the military or the police. Patricia's family never learned exactly who. He came home being the shadow of a man that he was because he was so skinny and, I mean, bony,

he had a beard so long, he didn't look at anything like my dad. But he'd made it back and with him he read a horrible story of torture. And things that had been done to him that were just inhumane. At that point Patricia's parents fled to Mexico City, leaving Patricia and her sister with their grandmother. Her parents said they'd be in touch when they had a plan. For two years, nothing. And then a letter from her mother.

And the letter said, you know, bring the girls to the border, bring them to this park and chap us, and I will be there waiting. Patricia enters sister across the border from Guatemala into Mexico and met their mom at a designated park. They learned that she'd met some Quakers involved in the sanctuary movement. The Quakers told the family they had to know their Mexico, where they were met by a Catholic priest named Father Ricardo Elford. He worked closely with Reverend V.

He wanted to know what had happened in Guatemala. He wanted to know why we were wanting to come to the US. He said, you know, just tell me, you know, what went on. Because we want to bring you, we just want to know what we can do for you. And my mom told him everything had happened, that the two. And then he said, everything is going to be okay. Father Elford was vetting the family.

He was making sure they qualified as refugees. As the sanctuary network had grown, they'd had to develop a more formalized process. This was partly to ensure their limited resources went towards helping people who were most in need. It was also to try and ensure they weren't putting volunteers at risk or bringing someone dangerous into the US. One of the government's criticisms of the sanctuary movement was that they lacked the expertise and resources to evaluate potential refugees. The government worried they might be helping criminals enter the country, or communists who wanted to undermine the US government. Here's Reverend Fife again. I would just kind of smile and say,

you don't understand the church. We have the best intelligence system in the world. As I understand it, what you say is you have five CIA agents in El Salvador right now. I have thousands. They're called priests and pastors, and all I have to do is pick up the phone and call them. And they'll give me the whole family history.

One's father, Alfred, was satisfied that Patricia and her family actually met the requirements for refugee status. He arranged for them to be brought across the border into the U.S. We got picked up very early in the morning in this yellow truck. And we were thrown in the back right under lots of sleeping bags and they told us that no matter what we couldn't pop our heads up We just had to stay underneath

The family crossed into Douglas, Arizona and then headed to Tucson where they stayed at St. Michael's Episcopal Another church in town that had declared sanctuary After living there for six months, they moved into a house and started the long process of applying to stay in the U.S. It took them more than six years of legal wrangling to receive asylum. Patricia still gets emotional thinking about what the sanctuary movement did for her and her family. I remember my parents talking about this and saying, you know, who would do this? Who would risk their lives, you know, their good lives here in the US for people like us? But as the movement grew bigger and more visible, the whole endeavor became riskier.

Well, quite frankly, I never thought we were going to get away with this. Right. I mean, the first time I went to the border to do a crossing, 1981 sometime, I had to get comfortable with the fact that we weren't going to get away with this, that the government was going to come after us. And it was only a matter of time. John was right. It was only a matter of time.

And the religious motivations of the sanctuary movement didn't get much sympathy from the government. They have the right to think what they want. Anybody does. That doesn't exclude them from obeying the wells of the United States. Somebody could say, I think it's my religious right to rob a liquor store. And I think most of us would say, no, it's not.

Next week on 99% in visible, undercover government informants infiltrate the sanctuary movement. Yeah, a couple of these guys, I thought they don't fit the usual sanctuary volunteer profile, right? 99% invisible was produced this week by Delaney Hall with Serifusive, Avery Trollflamon, Emmett Fitzgerald, Sam Greenspan, and me Roman Mars. Our senior editor is Katie Mangle. Kurt Colstead is our digital director. Taren Meza is the office manager.

Sean Rial composed original music for this episode with additional music by Okakumi and Melodium, special thanks to Trent Party at the University of Arizona Special Collections in Jude Party. We are a project of 91.7 KALW in San Francisco and produced on Radio Row in beautiful Party. We are a project of 91.7 K-A-L-W in San Francisco and produced on Radio Row in beautiful downtown Oakland, California. You can find 99% invisible and join discussions about this show on Facebook. You can tweet at me at Roman Mars and the show at 99PI Org. We're on Instagram and Tumblr too.

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