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Prophetic
Hospitality:
Strategy for a New Movement
Overview
As an act of public witness, the New Sanctuary Movement will enable
congregations to publicly provide hospitality and protection to
a limited number of immigrant families whose legal cases clearly
reveal the contradictions and moral injustice of our current immigration
system while working to support legislation that would change
their situation.
These families will be in the deportation process, include citizen
children, have adults with good work records and have a potential
case under current law. The Center for Constitutional Rights is
working with a broad network of lawyers across the country to
provide expert legal counsel and support to each family. Participating
congregations will offer a family hospitality for a limited period;
the family will rotate from one congregation to another as needed
until their case is resolved. Because the family's identity will
be public, the congregations will not be violating federal law.
Host congregations will sign onto a Sanctuary Pledge. Other allied
religious leaders and congregations will also sign onto the Pledge.
They will also accompany the host congregations, providing spiritual
and material support as needed.
Role and Expectations for Host Congregations
What does a place of worship have to do to participate and become
a sanctuary for immigrant families?
• Agree to host an immigrant family that meets the following
criteria:
Be in the legal process and under an order of deportation
American citizen children
Good work record
Viable case under current law
• Host the family for an initial commitment. The family
will use the congregation as their mailing address and will
be able to spend time as needed at the site. They may need actual
hospitality (a place to live) in the congregation, in real estate
owned by the congregation or in the home of a family that belongs
to the congregation.
• Help with material and spiritual support for the family.
There will be a larger network of individuals and congregations
who will not be hosting families but will be providing material
and spiritual support for families. Expert immigration lawyers
will be handling their case.
• Participate in a public press conference with congregations
all over the country who are hosting families. All of the host
and allied congregations are joining in an interfaith statement
of accompaniment/solidarity lifting up the human rights of immigrant
families as children of God.
• Be available for press interviews.
Allied
Faith Communities Statement of Support and Involvement
Moved by our faith to participate in the New Sanctuary Movement,
this faith community commits to the following:
Education
• We will educate ourselves about issues facing immigrants
in our society, and about the current status of immigration-related
legislation.
• We will avail ourselves of resources from the New Sanctuary
Movement, and will welcome the first-hand stories of immigrants
themselves who have experienced injustice.
• We will renew our study of the sacred stories of migration
and hospitality, injustice and hope, which already exist in our
own faith tradition.
• Seeking also to educate our greater community, we will
offer public forums on immigration.
Advocacy
We understand that education alone brings no change if it
does not lead to action. Therefore,
• We will actively and publicly work for comprehensive immigration
reform in the United States.
• We call for an immediate moratorium on all raids and unjust
deportations that cause the separation of families, until such
time as the broken system of immigration laws is fixed.
• We agree to include our names, our voices and our selves
(or representative members) in public events, various forms of
media, and other appropriate venues.
• We will be a compassionate and persistent voice for justice
for our immigrant brothers and sisters.
In addition, we commit to one or more of the following:
Legal Triage
The need for competent and free or low-cost legal advice to the
immigrant community far outstrips the capacity of the movements
“prophetic hospitality.” Therefore, faith communities
are called upon to host legal clinics, provide legal referrals
and to identify families in need of such assistance.
Prophetic Hospitality
Faith communities will "host" a family seeking sanctuary
for a period of three months, and serve as a tangible support
system for them during that period. Based on the needs of the
family in question, such support might include (a) meals for the
family, (b) transportation to and from work, school or other events,
(c) housing at the faith community itself, should such emergency
housing be required, and (d) financial support and/or job referral
(particularly in the case of job loss due to publicity of the
case). Although this form of very public hospitality is entirely
legal, faith communities involved in this aspect will have access
to first-rate pro-bono legal services.
Material Support
Faith communities will provide financial support towards either
(a) the New Sanctuary Movement itself, or (b) a pool of money
to be used to assist specific families in the local community
seeking sanctuary and in need of the support. Depending upon storage
and distribution capacity, other forms of donations could also
be given, including food, bedding, clothing, and other material
goods. Cultural, musical and other educational events are encouraged
to raise both money for and awareness of the movement.
Worker Justice
Despite society’s ongoing desire for the services of day
laborers and immigrant domestics, the climate of racism and harassment
has reached a fever pitch. Faith communities are called to offer
support through: 1) being publicly present at existing day labor
pick-up sites as a peaceful presence in the face of racist and
hateful demonstrators; 2) serving as an alternative labor/employer
match site; and/or 3) being advocates for worker issues.
NEW
SANCTUARY
MOVEMENT PLEDGE
The New Sanctuary Movement is a coalition of interfaith religious
leaders and participating congregations, called by our faith to
respond actively and publicly to the suffering of our immigrant
brothers and sisters residing in the United States.
We acknowledge that the large-scale immigration of workers and
their families to the United States is a complex historical, global
and economic phenomenon that has many causes and does not lend
itself to simplistic or purely reactive public policy solutions.
We stand together in our faith that everyone, regardless of national
origin, has basic common rights, including but not limited to:
1) livelihood; 2) family unity; and 3) physical and emotional
safety. We witness the violation of these rights under current
immigration policy, particularly in the separation of children
from their parents due to unjust deportations, and in the exploitation
of immigrant workers. We are deeply grieved by the violence done
to families through immigration raids. We cannot in good conscience
ignore such suffering and injustice.
Therefore,
We Covenant To:
• Take a public, moral stand for immigrants’ rights
• Reveal, through education and advocacy, the actual suffering
of immigrant workers and families under current and proposed legislation
• Protect immigrants against hate, workplace discrimination,
and unjust deportation
Legal justification for the legal
status of congregations participating in this sanctuary per the
Center for Constitutional Rights
"Immigration and Nationality Act 274(a)(1)(1)(iii), 8 U.S.C.
1324(a)(1)(A)(iii)(1988) states that a person is guilty of a felony
who with knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien
has come to, entered or remains in the U.S. in violation of the
law conceals, harbors or shields from detection or attempts to conceal,
harbor or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including
any building or means of transportation....
All cases decided under 1324(a) involve defendants who simply kept
silent about the aliens' presence, rather than individuals who have
reported the aliens' presence to the INS but who have continued
to shelter them. Accordingly, a congregation that houses undocumented
immigrants will likely not be prosecuted unless they are attempting
to conceal such alien from Immigration and Custom Enforcement detection...
In addition, Senate Bill 2611, Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Act of 2006, passed the Senate 62-36 in May 2006 provides a specific
exception from liability for individuals or organizations who encourage
a person to reside in the United States or harbors an illegal alien
from detention with knowing or reckless disregard of their illegal
status. The exemption applies to individuals or organizations, not
previously convicted of a violation of this section, who provide
an alien who is present in the United States with humanitarian assistance,
including medical care, housing, counseling, victim services and
food, or to transport the alien to a location where such assistance
can be rendered.
LINKS
See
The Convening, Washington D.C.
See
Overview, Goals and Structure of the New Sanctuary Movement
See
About the Coordinating Organizations
See
Prophetic Hospitality: Strategies for A New Movement
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