The Latino pastor who prayed at President Trump’s inauguration is opening his church to those who fear deportation under the president’s new immigration policy.
Time magazine is reporting that Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, has 30 cots set up at New Season Christian Worship Center in Sacramento, California.
New Season opened its shelter after the President issued an executive order in January that expanded the federal deportation policy. Since then, half a dozen families have used the church as a safe haven. Time reports that half came with fears about immigration and half with fears about domestic abuse.
“The anxiety in Christian conservative, evangelical churches has grown exponentially,” said Rodriguez, “because many of our worshipers, many of the families we serve, many of the families in our pews, may very well lack the appropriate documentation, even though we have a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.”
New Season’s safe haven program differentiates itself from the sanctuary church movement with that no-questions-asked policy. Conversely, sanctuary churches exist to help immigrants who say explicitly that they’re facing deportation. Hundreds of churches, mainly liberal and non-evangelical, have signed up to serve as sanctuary churches. Just six families are using sanctuary churches right now according to the Church World Service.
Rev. Rodriguez recently told CBN News that he fears guidance memos from the Department of Homeland Security(DHS) could be interpreted to justify “enforcement overreach” by deportation officials. Rodriguez advocates deportation of violent criminals. “I ask the administration to…fullfill the promise President Trump made not to harm families and exclusively deport those involved in nefarious activities,” he said.
At the same time, Rodriguez is pleased that Trump is extending the DACA program for “Dreamers” who came to the U.S. as children and never received legal status. “I am also encouraged to learn the DHS will maintain the previous administration’s policy of keeping churches and schools off-limits from future immigration enforcement actions,” he said.
Many Latinos have worried for months about what the Trump administration will mean for their role in society. A Pew Research Center poll taken in December and early January found that 32% of Hispanics say their group’s situation in the U.S. is worse than a year ago. That’s roughly double the share that indicated the same to Pew in 2013.
Pew also found that almost half of all Hispanics worry about deportation for themself, a family member or a close friend. Of those born in the U.S., one-third say they’re worried.
Rev. Gabriel Salguero, the founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, says the Pew poll is “fairly representative” of the growing concern he sees for Hispanics around immigration and deportation. “The poll shows,” he said, “depending on your legal status, your levels of anxiety change.”
Salguero says those fears should be a call to action for the church. “There’s a group that we need to respond to pastorally,” he said.
