With Sanctuary 2014, the church, if not the law, is on immigrants' side

PHILADELPHIA — Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, had become a familiar sight at the North Philadelphia home Angela Navarro shared with her parents. “It was like it was their house, they were there so much,” she remembers, laughing a bit. She’s lost track of how many times ICE officials showed up at the home. “They were looking for a brother-in-law that was living there, and they may have been looking for me, too.”

Navarro, a native of Honduras, was caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in 2003. She was 17 at the time, so she was allowed to remain in the country with her parents, who were already living in Philadelphia, while her case played out. Ultimately, the judge ordered her to leave the country. She didn’t, so a deportation order has been in place against her for 10 years. In recent years her family has changed homes regularly, trying to stay a step ahead of ICE.

On Monday, Navarro made what she hopes will be the last of those moves. Along with her husband, son and daughter — all U.S. citizens — she moved into the West Kensington Ministry, a stately, weathered brick church in North Philadelphia. A day later, she made it official, speaking to reporters at an event announcing her move.

It’s the latest episode in what organizers are calling Sanctuary 2014. The first came in May, when Daniel Neyoy Ruiz, an undocumented man living in Tucson, moved into the Southside Presbyterian Church there. (Southside has a special place in sanctuary history: The original movement of the 1980s, when a network of U.S. churches harbored immigrants fleeing bloody civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, started there.)

Ruiz was facing a deportation order and moved into the church in part to avoid capture. He was also hoping the public attention would pressure ICE to give a serious look at an appeal his lawyers filed. The idea worked: A month later, ICE gave him a one-year reprieve. Since then, seven more people with similar goals have moved into churches — three more in Arizona and one each in Denver; Chicago; Portland, Oregon; and, now, Philadelphia.

The success of these sanctuary actions hinges on ICE’s reticence to remove people from a church. The agency has a policy of not following people into what it calls sensitive areas — schools, hospitals and places of worship among them — unless the individual represents an immediate threat or local agents get approval from immigration officials in Washington. ICE hasn’t pursued any of the sanctuary-seekers yet, although a man living in a Portland church was taken into custody for a day earlier this month when he left the building to appear at a court date. (ICE officials in Philadelphia declined to comment on Navarro’s case for this article.)

President Obama is expected on Thursday evening to issue new orders about several aspects of federal immigration policy. The specifics of his actions are unknown. “Everyone’s doing a lot of guesswork right now,” said Sarah Launius, a lawyer and one of the organizers of the sanctuary effort in Tucson.

There are indications that the administration could put deportations of undocumented people on hold if they meet certain criteria: if they’ve been in the country for a designated length of time, if they have children who are U.S. citizens, if they don’t have serious criminal violations. Angela Navarro checks all these boxes, but her case may be complicated by her final deportation order. And Launius points out that many people don’t meet these criteria, so she doesn’t think the sanctuary movement will stop anytime soon. “I do think that, barring a miracle, it will continue to be needed,” she said.

The crowd gathered on the front steps of West Kensington Ministry Tuesday morning wasn’t waiting for a miracle. As TV cameramen jostled for location and an organizer ran through the event’s choreography, supporters sang the protest song “We Shall Not Be Moved” with Spanish verses. They ran through the words printed on a handout, then started improvising new ones. “Until Obama hears us,” someone called out. “We shall not be moved,” the crowd answered.

The night before, however, speaking in the quiet of the church chapel, Navarro said she was eager to get down to work on her legal appeal. Since she can’t leave the church, she’ll be focused on her legal challenge and on teaching herself to play guitar. She was nervous about having become a public face in the immigration debate but hoped her gamble would pay off soon. “I want ICE to stop my deportation order, because I’m tired of living in fear.”