A Defeat for Sanctuary

By Richard N. Ostling

After six months of acrimonious courtroom proceedings and nearly 50 hours of deliberation, a jury last week filed into a tiny federal courtroom in Tucson. The eleven defendants, all of them church workers, faced the jury. Then they listened in stunned silence as the court clerk read guilty verdicts against six of them for conspiring to smuggle Salvadorans and Guatemalans into the U.S. Two more were found guilty of harboring or transporting the illegal aliens.

The verdicts marked a victory for the Federal Government in its drive to prosecute members of a nationwide movement that seeks to give church sanctuary to Central American refugees who have entered the U.S. illegally. The outcome of the case, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Reno, "is going to have a significant impact on those persons (in the movement) who were well intended but misguided."

Despite facing a maximum penalty of five years in prison for each of the felony charges, Sanctuary activists seemed undaunted. Said the Rev. John M. Fife, 46, of Tucson's Southside United Presbyterian Church, a co-founder of the movement and one of the eight* convicted defendants: "I plan for as long as possible to continue to be the pastor of a congregation that has committed itself to providing

sanctuary for refugees until their lives are no longer in danger." The other co-founder, retired Rancher Jim Corbett, who was acquitted, said, "We will continue to provide sanctuary services openly and go to trial as often as is necessary to establish . . . that the protection of human rights is never illegal."

Sanctuary has become a popular cause among liberal religious activists. Some 300 local congregations, including about 100 since the Tucson indictments were filed last year, have declared themselves to be sanctuaries for Central Americans, as have a Methodist seminary, eleven universities, 19 cities and, under an order by Democratic Governor Toney Anaya, the entire state of New Mexico. Also endorsing the movement: the American Baptist, Presbyterian and United Methodist churches, United Church of Christ, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the rabbinical arms of Conservative and Reform Judaism.

The Tucson defendants, citing churches' traditional offers of asylum to those fleeing pursuers and the U.S. underground railroad for 19th century slaves, steadfastly claimed that they had a religious duty to aid people who fear abuse, prison or even death in their homeland. But to the Federal Government, which last year prosecuted 18,000 cases of smuggling illegal aliens, church activists warrant no special treatment. Says Commissioner Alan C. Nelson of the Immigration and Naturalization Service: "No group, no matter how well meaning and highly motivated, can arbitrarily violate the laws of the United States."

In a tactical triumph for the Government, Judge Earl Carroll barred all testimony on the religious and humanitarian motives behind the defendants' actions. Sanctuary lawyers nonetheless managed to slip several such references into testimony, and they plan to cite Carroll's ruling when they appeal the verdict. Prosecutor Reno, grandson of a Methodist preacher, faced some obstacles. He had the unenviable task of portraying as criminals a group of pious Good Samaritans (who held a prayer meeting after the jury announced its verdicts). One of the 15 Central Americans summoned to the stand by Reno, for instance, described a defendant as "the only person who offered me a roof over my head when I was most in need."

But the Government had a star witness, Jesus Cruz, a Mexican, and it relied heavily upon his 23 days of testimony. An admitted smuggler of farm workers, Cruz was paid $21,000, in part to infiltrate church meetings and obtain evidence against the Sanctuary workers with a hidden tape recorder. To make the arrests easier, Cruz even asked his Bible-study partners for their addresses, on the pretext of sending them Christmas cards.

! A number of church leaders have denounced the Government's use of undercover operatives, working inside churches to obtain evidence without search warrants, in the Tucson case. The American Lutheran and Presbyterian churches have filed a federal suit in Phoenix, contending that such practices violate the constitutional right to religious freedom and to protection against unreasonable searches.

A second federal suit connected with the Tucson case has been filed in San Francisco by a coalition of 80 national and local religious bodies. They argue that all Sanctuary prosecutions should be halted because this church activity is legal under a 1980 U.S. law that grants asylum to refugees fleeing political persecution.

The suits have not intimidated INS, which intends to continue prosecuting clergy and church workers who offer sanctuary to illegals. Another trial is scheduled to begin next month in Brownsville, Texas; Defendant Stacey Merkt is a Methodist. But the prosecutions, far from stemming the movement, have given it new prominence. Says Presbyterian Fife: "Tens of millions of Americans who never knew this was an issue now know about it. And they know it is a major church-state issue, probably the major one of the 1980s."

FOOTNOTE: * The others: two Roman Catholic priests, the Rev. Anthony Clark and the Rev. Ramon Dagoberto Quinones, a Mexican; Sister Darlene Nicgorski; and four lay church workers.

With reporting by Carol Ann Bassett/Tucson and Michael Riley/Los Angeles