Faith-based group plans sanctuary for illegal immigrants

[AlphaCentauri]

SAN ANTONIO — A group of faith-driven activists is trying to organize a network to help illegal immigrants who fear new local immigration-related laws and massive raids.

The advocates — all Catholic — hope to provide places to stay, food and health care for immigrants. They have a few families who have volunteered to host immigrants, but ultimately want to open a shelter.

If the project is successful, immigrants seeking sanctuary would simply need to ask for "Romo."

The name refers to Toribio Romo, a Mexican priest who was killed in the 1920s and later canonized as a saint. Many crossing the border illegally invoke Romo when praying for safe passage into the United States.

"We are the new Sanctuary Movement in San Antonio," said group member Victor Ruiz, 63, who works for the immigration division of Catholic Charities. "If immigrants need help, we will do all we can to help them out."

The original Sanctuary Movement was a religious effort started in the 1980s to help Central Americans fleeing the region's civil wars.

Similarly, New Sanctuary Movement coalitions have formed nationwide to offer refuge to parents whose pending deportations would split them from their U.S.-born children.

"What they're doing over there is incredibly powerful," said Kristin Kumpf, a national organizer with Interfaith Worker Justice in Chicago and a national spokeswoman for the New Sanctuary Movement. "I'm grateful that people of faith in San Antonio are welcoming our immigrant brothers and sisters."

Members of the Romo group in San Antonio point to an increasingly anti-immigrant atmosphere in the country and cite the New Testament's Matthew 25 as a religious requirement to help the stranger or outsider.

"Immigrants need to know that they're not alone, that not everyone in this country is their enemy," said Father Donald Bahlinger, 79, a priest at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church who spent nearly a decade in Central America in the 1990s.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5801389.html

[Jim__]

1. Good for them!

I'm all for controlling our borders. However, most of the Latin American workers who have been in this country for a number of years, were essentially invited in by our policies. To change our policies now and snatch up people who've been here for years and break up their families is a policy worthy of george bush.