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PRESS
ROOM _______________
Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel
Tuesday,July 17, 2007
A Milwaukee immigrant-rights group is asking
area churches, synagogues and mosques to offer financial and moral
support - including sheltering illegal immigrants facing deportation
- to a small but growing effort known as the New Sanctuary Movement.
Voces de la Frontera is contacting 30 congregations, some denominations
and groups such as Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for
Hope.
Churches in several cities nationally have begun sheltering immigrants.
And at least one church here - Cristo Rey Lutheran Church, an
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation on the south
side - has indicated a willingness to do so, said Joanne Lange,
a local coordinator for Voces.
The Rev. Carlos Aranda, its pastor, voiced support for the effort
Saturday in front of more than 100 people at a gathering at Prince
of Peace Parish, a Catholic congregation on the near south side.
It was part of a multicity Wisconsin Reality Tour by Voces to
call attention to immigration issues.
"I think it is a critical development in the immigrant rights
movement," Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director and
founder of Voces, said of the sanctuary movement.
"It's picking up on the tradition and experience of the
1980s Central American refugee movement," Ortiz said. "But
it really is sending a strong message to our federally elected
leaders that, in the absence of their leadership and their solution,
people of conscience are not going to stand by and let other people
suffer and be persecuted because Congress is not willing to step
forward and change these unjust laws. It is showing that U.S.
citizens and the religious community - again, people of conscience
- will stand up."
Four people who were arrested last August in a raid of the Star
Packaging plant in Whitewater spoke to the crowd Saturday. That
included Yenni Mora, 28, who tearfully said her threatened deportation
would break up her family because her two children are U.S. citizens.
"It is tearing families apart," she said. "It's
not fair. We just came here to work."
But Ira Mehlman, a national spokesman for the Federation for
American Immigrant Reform, differed, saying that parents were
not being forced to leave children behind.
"Anytime parents break the law, they put their families
at risk," said Mehlman, whose group's goals include better
border security. "Essentially, they are trying to use children
as human shields. If you take that logic and apply it across the
board, we would never prosecute parents for anything."
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