No special protection for church in U.S. law

August 16, 2006

BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Legal Affairs Reporter

Nowhere in American immigration law does it say you can claim sanctuary in a church.

"I don't think there is any special protection for the church proper in a legal sense," said University of Chicago law professor Susan Gzesh. "If law enforcement wants to execute a warrant, they probably could. But what police officer would want to do it?"

Throughout the 1980s, as churches around the country took in refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala threatened with deportation, the immigration service never stormed a church to deport them, said Michael McConnell of the American Friends Service Committee.

He said he could not predict what this administration would do, but he believes that English common law -- from which American law takes some precedent -- recognized church sanctuary.

Case raises awareness

"It moves us out of the realm of what is legal or illegal and into moral questions," Gzesh said. "Public officials, from prosecutors to police, have enormous discretion when setting their enforcement priorities. There are 12 million people who could be arrested by the immigration service and deported, but it hasn't been the priority of the immigration service to seek out average Joes."

Had the immigration bill passed by the House of Representatives become law, the Rev. Walter Coleman could have been criminally charged with harboring an illegal immigrant, said Mary Meg McCarthy of the Heartland Alliance.

The House and Senate passed different versions of the bill, and the criminal sanctions for those who give "humanitarian aid" to illegal immigrants is not as popular in the Senate.

Whether or not Elvira Arrellano's sanctuary bid succeeds in sparing her from deportation to Mexico, immigration attorneys say they hope it educates people about the law and perhaps prompts new laws, as the last sanctuary movement did.

"I'm glad that this case has raised this level of awareness because this is an important issue -- the significant problem of separating families," attorney Susan Fortino-Brown said.

apallasch@suntimes.com