What is Sanctuary?

On Tuesday, January 21, 2025, the Trump administration reversed a decade old guidance which previously restricted key immigration enforcement agencies from carrying out enforcement in sensitive locations like schools and churches.  “This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murderers and rapists — who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”

Time for a new question inserted and this question is mine.  

What is Sanctuary and how important is it?   

It’s one that came to my mind from the news above.  And one I feel needs to be continued to be reviewed again and again. 

What follows is a revision of a discussion that has been posted here before.  And one I imagine that will continue to be added to and revised throughout the tenure of this blog.

See, I love The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I've been listening to the cast album from the Paper Mill Playhouse production and it has quickly become one of my favorite musical compositions. The moment, of course, that always stands out to me is when Quasimodo finally breaks his chains and fights back against Frollo, yelling "Sanctuary" over and over, claiming Notre Dame as a place of refuge for all.

And that got me thinking...

When did the Church stop being a Sanctuary for all?

I know the specific laws of Sanctuary have long been overturned and those had their own unique problems, but there is something truly Christ-like about the image of anyone regardless of their background and sin being able to enter the church and claim sanctuary.

And it just doesn't seem like we live up to that any more. It seems we are more interested in the privileges and perks afforded our members, making sure they are well taken care of, than in providing refuge to the weary. A spa or country club as opposed to a fortress and refuge from the battle outside.

It's time to be honest. How do we act when a stranger comes in to the church? Does it depend on the stranger?

If a Muslim sought protection from a group of persecutors or if a homosexual person sought refuge from the same, would it be extended? Or would the church and its members be more likely to be the ones persecuting them?

Is the church out there speaking up for Black lives, or is it insisting the whole thing has just been stirred up by the media?  Claiming "All Lives Matter" in the face of specific hurts to specific populations?  Generally true, but not helpful?  

Perhaps most pressing today - will the church stand in the gap and declare itself holy ground and refuse to allow ICE to raid the building?

Do we believe in that separation of church and state?  Do we believe in protecting the family that needs protection?  Do we believe in hospitality to the stranger among us?  

Do we believe the words of Jesus, or do we not?

Are we just another arm of the government?

Does it even matter to anyone but me?

We have got to as the body of Christ take a very hard look at ourselves and what we’ve aligned ourselves with.  How we’ve allowed ourselves to be seen and where we are taking Christ’s name.    It’s the broader question in what is a Christian, but this part just needed to be asked today.  

Because this goes more to the distinction between church and Christianity.  Even begging the question what is church or what is a church?  Is there something special about a church, that distinguishes it from any other space.  Prior to this revocation, we recognized it as something set apart.  Something that should not be invaded.  People should be able to be safe in their place of worship and we should not interfere with that.  

Likewise, the church has an important function that makes it separate from the government.  The government’s focus should be on the health, safety, and prosperity of the physical state of their populace.  The church focuses on the health, safety, and prosperity of the populace’s soul.  

Often the two intertwine.  Meeting physical needs and caring for the least of these helps not only lift spirits but take care of the physical body.  To that end, we’ve often relied on the nations churches for their charity work in taking care of the physical needs of the greater population (sometimes improperly at the expense of government intervention).  

Similarly, the our government’s founding documents make preserving the right to free exercise of religion, a protection of the physical act that also leads to the care for the soul.

The differences between the two mean that there comes a point where two also hold each other accountable.  Government is supposed to intervene and protect its citizens from abuse by the church.  Government should absolutely be called to bring those pastors, priests, and lay leadership who have committed sexual abuse under the “protection” of church leadership, for example.  That is not something that could or should be left to the church.

Further, the church must be responsible to hold government of all stripes accountable for its actions and policies.  To demand justice where appropriate.  To seek peace where needed.  And to ask for mercy as is appropriate, as Bishop Budde just plead.

That call for mercy is appropriate here.  A call for mercy and for thoughtfulness in how to resolve this issue.  A call for justice beyond the letter of the law, appealing to its spirit.

And I know, I’m going to hear the constant replies of how the families and individuals at the heart of these raids are breaking the law and how we have to be apart of making sure the laws of our country are followed.  

Perhaps it’s just me, and I’m sorry, but all I keep hearing are repeated questions of “Who is my neighbor?” and repeated attempts to redefine what that parable actually meant.  I’ve seen that whole discourse online before.  

I know many are trying. I just pray that we can do better, because it seems as a whole we keep missing the point.

“God help the outcasts, or nobody will.”

Because, if we needed any other reason beyond empathy - at some point, we’ll be the outcast and there will be no one there for us.

I’m including below a graphic on reminders for how to proceed if ICE does try to raid your church.  It’s really a good reminder for how to interact with law enforcement in order to preserve your rights in any respect, especially if you suspect you will be going through prosecution.  The biggest piece of advice I can give is to have an attorney you are prepared to consult in the event of a raid.  

"Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place." Jeremiah 22:3

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in." Matthew 25:35

Safe and Sanitary

ABA Criminal Justice Standards on Treatment of Prisoners

Standard 23-3.5 Provision of Necessities

(a) Correctional authorities should maintain living quarters and associated common areas in a sanitary condition.  Correctional authorities should be permitted to require prisoners able to perform cleaning tasks to do so, with necessary materials and equipment provided to them regularly and without charge.

“'Border Patrol agents told us some of the detainees had been held in standing-room-only conditions for days or weeks,’ the inspector general’s office said in its report, which noted that some detainees were observed standing on toilets in the cells ‘to make room and gain breathing space, thus limiting access to the toilets.’"

(b) Correctional authorities should provide prisoners with clean, appropriately sized clothing suited to the season and facility temperature and to the prisoner’s work assignment and general, in quantities sufficient to allow for a daily change of clothing.  Prisoners should receive opportunities to mend and machine launder their clothing if the facility does not provide these services.  Correctional authorities should implement procedures to permit prisoners to wear street clothes when they appear in court before a jury.

“Children as young as 7 and 8, many of them wearing clothes caked with snot and tears, are caring for infants they’ve just met, the lawyers said.  Toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants.  Teenage mothers are wearing clothes stained with breast milk."

(c) Correctional authorities should provide prisoners, without charge, basic individual hygiene items appropriate for their gender, as well as towels and bedding, which should be exchanged or laundered at least weekly.  Prisoners should also be permitted to purchase hygiene supplies in a commissary.  

“Most of the young detainees have not been able to shower or wash their clothes since they arrived at the facility, those who visited said.  They have no access to toothbrushes, toothpaste or soap.

‘There is a stench,’ said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, one of the lawyers who visited the facility. ‘ The overwhelming majority of children have not bathed since they crossed the border.’”

Consider this one of the semi-regular reminders that we have a humanitarian crisis of our own creation at the border.  From descriptions from the lawyers who have been able to go into the detention facilities and speak with their immigrant clients, we have hundreds of children and young people detained in the most deplorable conditions possible. 

Elora Mukherjee, the director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School and one of the lawyers who has visited the facilities, said the conditions in the Clint facility were the worst she had seen in any facility in her twelve year career.  “So many children are sick, they have the flu, and they’re not being properly treated,” she said.

“The children are locked in their cells and cages nearly all day long,” Ms. Mukherjee said.  “A few of the kids said they had some opportunities to go outside and play, but they said they can’t bring themselves to play because they are trying to stay alive in there.”

The children told the lawyers that they were given the same meals every day, repetitive and not enough.  “Nearly every child I spoke with said that they were hungry.”

Similar conditions have been discovered at six other facilities in Texas.  At the Border Patrol’s Central Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, the lawyers found a 17-year-old mother from Guatemala who couldn’t stand because of complications from an emergency C-section, and who was caring for a sick and dirty premature baby.  “They wouldn’t give her any water to wash her.”

We know these conditions are deplorable, and yet our government is arguing that basic sanitation should not be mandated under the legal settlement governing the facilities.  The guidelines require that a facility for children must be “safe and sanitary.”  And our government has argued that soap and toothbrushes are not necessary for safe and sanitary. The Justice Department’s lawyer, Sarah Fabian, argued that the settlement agreement did not specify the need to supply hygienic items and that, therefore, the government did not need to do so.

Here’s the thing - as we can see above, we treat prisoners better than we are treating migrant children at the border.  We make sure that prisoners - murderers, thieves, rapists, predators - we make sure they have clean clothes, they have soap, the are able to wash, to make sure they are fed and clean.  To not do so would be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

So why is it okay to forgo all those necessities at the border?

Is it just out of sight, out of mind?

Or have we really de-humanized them that much?  

Because they are not American?

Or, because they are brown?

Are we that callous as a society?

I know there is a part of society that assumes that everyone crossing the border deserves this fate because they are not coming the right way.  Despite the fact that illegal crossing was previously a misdemeanor - punished by a fine or very minimal incarceration.  Even if we were to treat these migrants as the most heinous criminals, we still see that our treatment of them does not match our traditional punishment for crimes.

That’s even overlooking the minor detail that these are children.  Children we are subjecting to the worst and most inhumane treatment we can offer.

“‘Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you’ve got an aluminum foil blanket?’  Judge William Fletcher asked Ms. Fabian. ‘ I find it inconceivable that the government would say that is safe and sanitary.’”

Me too.

The Caravan

"These aren't people.  These are animals."

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best.  They're bringing drugs.  They're bringing crime.  They're rapists.  And some, I assume, are good people."

"That's an invasion.  I don't care what they say.  I don't care what the fake news media says.  That's an invasion of our country.  Build the wall."

"I am telling the caravans, the criminals, the smugglers, the trespassers marching toward our border, turn back now, because you are not getting in.  Turn back."

"Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border.  Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process.  This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!"

"The Caravans are made up of some very tough fighters and people.  Fought back hard and viciously against Mexico at Northern Border before breaking through.  Mexican soldiers hurt, were unable, or unwilling to stop Caravan.  Should stop them before they reach our Border, but won't."

"Why do we want these people from all these shithole countries here?  We should have more people from places like Norway."

--------------------

The irony of the comments Trump has made regarding the caravan and current immigration should not be lost on anyone.  While we are a nation of immigrants, more than any other on this planet, we have a history of wanting to close the door once our particular branch gets in.

The quotes are not hard to find and are all cringeworthy.

"Few of their children in the country learn English ... The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.

Benjamin Franklin, founding father, on German immigration to Pennsylvania, 1750s

"We should build a wall of brass around the country."

John Jay, first chief justice of the Supreme Court, regarding "Catholic alien invaders," 1750s

"What means the paying of the passage and empyting out upon our shores such floods of pauper emigrants - the contents of the poor houses and the sweeping of the streets? - multiplying tumults and violence, filling our prisons, and crowding our poor-houses, and quadrupling our taxation, and sending annually accumulating thousands to the poll to lay their inexperienced hand upon the helm of our power?"

Lyman Beecher, Leader of the Second Great Awakening, on English immigrants, 1834

"Standing behind them are Christian employers of this land, who would rather import heathen willing to work for barely enough to sustain life than retain a brother Christian at a wage sufficient to live as becomes a Christian.  We do not want Opium or the Chinese who grow it."

Terence Powderly, Irish-American labor leader, 1892

"The people of this country are too tolerant.  There's no other country in the world where they'd allow it ... After all we built up this country and then we allow a lot of foreigners, the scum of Europe, the offscourings of Polish ghettos to come and run it for us."

John Dos Passos, early 20th century novelist, on US immigration policy

"They are coming in such numbers and we are unable adequately to take care of them ... It simply amounts to unrestricted and indiscriminate dumping into this country of people of every character and description ... If there were in existence a ship that could hold three million human beings, then three million Jews of Poland would board to escape to America."

Congressional hearing, 1920

The last two are particularly hard, for they were trying to escape, and we know what from.  This has to represent one of the lowest parts of our history.  It makes me think of the voyage of the MS St. Louis - the "Voyage of the Damned." The ship set sail from Hamburg to Cuba on May 13, 1939 carrying 937 passengers, mostly Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi Germany.  The ship, helmed by a non-Jewish German made sure his passengers were treated well, a great change from their treatment in Germany.  Upon arrival at Cuba, the Cuban government refused to accept the foreign refugees.  After five days of negotiation, only 29 passengers were allowed to disembark.  The vessel then headed toward the United States, hoping for permission to enter here, but was prevented by the Coast Guard.  The St. Louis then headed to Halifax, Nova Scotia, but were denied again.  The refugees were finally accepted in various European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France.  It is estimated that approximately a quarter of the passengers died in death camps during World War II.  All because no one wanted to deal with the refugees.

The caravan that is coming to this country has been blown out of proportion for political gain.  This is not the first migrant caravan to come through Central America to the United States, though it is a larger one. It is not as large as it has been reported, instead containing only around 4,000 people and growing smaller as the journey continues.  This has not been orchestrated by George Soros or the liberals in America to bring in a large swath of constituents or to drum up a wedge issue.

And contrary to what you may believe, the caravan is not looking to enter the country illegally - they are looking to claim asylum.  "The vast majority of Central Americans have been presenting themselves and requesting asylum.  It's not a picking-somebody-up-if-they're-sneaking-across-the-border situation.  When they encounter the Border Patrol, they're saying they need protection."  That's why the people in the caravan are willing to walk 2,500 miles to get here.  Why they press on despite illness, the weather, and even potential death.  Why they are willing to press on despite potential incarceration at the border, despite a very uncertain reception.  They are not looking to sneak in.  They are walking here as a last ditch effort to ask for help.

For they believe the promise we make of a better life here.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

We've got to better than an increased presence of active duty military at the border.  We have to do better than family separation as a deterrent, a horrendous policy we are still trying to put right.  We have to do better than a threat to end a time-honored practice of birthright citizenship.  We have to do better than to turn off all avenues of legal immigration.

We have to do better than this -

Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A. We will close the Border permanently if need be. Congress, fund the WALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2018

It's fundamental to who we are.

"Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.  No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1

There is a current movement in this country to end birthright citizenship - that is to end the automatic citizenship of children born in this country.  It's a measure designed to end the manufactured crisis of "anchor babies" or "birth tourism."  Designed to curb illegal immigration by making sure the children of illegal immigrants would still be illegal as well.

We are one of around thirty five countries that have this concept of citizenship by birth.  Birthright citizenship, or jus soli (right of the soil), has a long history in America.  It stems from the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, stating that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."  This clause was meant to override the 1857 Dred Scott case that denied African Americans citizenship.  And while the Amendment seems clear and direct, the controversy and potential for ambiguity comes with the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."  It is this phrase which Trump and other conservatives are using to point to the possibility of changing birthright citizenship to exclude children of non-citizens or residents.

There is support for this particular tactic in the Amendment's history.  The sponsor of the Amendment Jacob Howard argued the clause had the same content as the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and should be read to exclude American Indians who maintain their tribal ties and "persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers."  However, this merely goes to framers intent which is persuasive but not controlling on our governance.  In fact, you can also find support in the Amendment's history from three senators, including the author of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 Lyman Trumbull and President Andrew Johnson who argued that children born in the United States to parents who are not U.S. citizens and not foreign diplomats would become citizens by birth, with no opposition.

Further, the Supreme Court has addressed the issue of birthright citizenship in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), looking squarely at the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" phrase.  In the case, the had to decide whether a child born in the United States to parents of Chinese descent, who were subjects of China but had a permanent domicile and residence in the United States at the time of the child's birth.   The court decided the "Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin's Case, 7 Rep. 6a, "strong enough to make a natural subject, for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject;" and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, "if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle." 

If there were any question as to the courts intent in Wong Kim Ark, the court re-affirmed this principle in Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982).  Though the Plyler case focuses on a state statute denying funding for the education of undocumented immigrant children in the United States, the opinion contains a dictum footnote in the majority opinion that stated that according to Wong Kim Ark, the Fourteenth Amendment's phrases "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and "within its jurisdiction" were essentially equivalent, both referring primarily to physical presence, not political allegiance, and that Wong Kim Ark benefited the children of illegal as well as legal aliens.  It's also important to note that while the dissent may have disagreed with the overall opinion in Plyler that the children had a right to a public education, they agreed with the majority regarding the applicability of the Fourteenth Amendment jurisdiction to illegal aliens.  It would seem that birthright citizenship at this point is "settled law" and should rightly be considered so.

So when Trump says the following "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment.  Guess what?  You don't.  You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress.  But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order.  We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years, with all of those benefits.  It's ridiculous.  It's ridiculous.  And it has to end," be aware.  He cannot do it with an executive order.  That would be unconstitutional for it's not in his powers.  An Act of Congress could be enacted, but its constitutionality would be challenged given the Supreme Court precedent and it would need to be decided by the court.  

Let's pray this does not need to go that far.  Let's pray we affirm a fundamental principle in our Constitution, for we are not a country that is defined by race, origin, or creed.  We are a nation of immigrants born here or naturalized and dedicated to an idea.  A dream open to all who want to partake in it.