Asheville volunteers work to feed families hiding from ICE

ASHEVILLE — The sun on Wednesday was unusually hot, so the workers had to move fast.

Dozens of volunteers at the BeLoved House on Grove Street packed food into boxes destined for families housebound after recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

BeLoved House serves as the first declared sanctuary in Western North Carolina, a place where people on the front lines of sometimes-hidden crises mobilize.

On this Wednesday, it was a hub of activity as cars pulled up honking, hazards blinking. Volunteers would rush to collects flats of eggs, cartons of juice, bath tissue — all the needful things day-to-day life requires.

Ferried into the belly of BeLoved House or stacked out front if nonperishable, groceries were redistributed into care packages, which then were hustled into trucks and vans, destined for places where blinds were drawn and doors were locked.

The boxes told the stories of the people behind the doors, in those silenced neighborhoods: tiny diapers destined for a baby, sanitary items for her mother.

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Cards offer advice for if ICE comes knocking

All of the boxes, regardless of destination, had one item in common: a card with rights and instructions for anyone facing ICE.

"If they force their way in, do not resist," it said in Spanish. "Tell everyone in the house to stay silent."

The Rev. Amy Cantrell, the creator of BeLoved House, stood in the middle of it all, struggling to quantify how many needed immediate assistance.

"One of these neighborhoods has 50 families in it," she said. "We've seen ICE traumatizing neighborhoods from Edneyville, to Waynesville, to Marion, to Candler, to Emma, to Swannanoa. There are countless neighborhoods that have been impacted. We're just trying to do everything we can do."

Meanwhile, Oscar, who declined to give his last name, said his phone was filling with pleas for assistance faster than he could answer.

"I've been getting messages that immigration is checking West Asheville, in Hendersonville, in Flat Rock, in Arden and Candler," he said. "There is a lot of fear in the community that I've never seen in the 14 years that I've been here."

For the previous two days, Oscar — a community activist, DJ and father — had hidden inside, doing what he could through social media. But it wasn't enough to hide behind a screen. It was the time to mobilize, he said.

"We cannot be silent. That's why I decided to come out today. I can't just stay home getting worried and staying in my head. We have to be useful with the resources we have and put them together."

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Raids drive immigrants into hiding

ICE arrested at least 17 people from Buncombe and Henderson counties during raids this week. The news drove some families into hiding for days, Oscar said.

"It's insane that people don't want to get out of the house to buy groceries. We have text messages from people saying 'I'm afraid to go out and buy groceries — can somebody bring me food?' Really, this community has come to that?"

Oscar grew up in Mexico City, in one of the largest housing projects in Latin America. Neither of his parents was in the picture, he said.

"Most of my life was just surviving. Without parents, you can't really find a job, enroll in school."

Fourteen years ago, when Oscar turned 18, he walked from from Sonora, Mexico, to Arizona, a 200-mile trip that took about two weeks. He said he wanted to make money in the U.S. to help his older brothers finish college.

"We had the opportunity for one of us to come here in a time of despair," he said. "We definitely were desperate about money and didn't know what to do. I decided to come here for one year, and the intention was to help them go to college. That's why I walked."

But Oscar stayed. He now has a son with his ex-wife, who also lives in Asheville. She was also at BeLoved house, packing groceries in the sun.

Oscar said his son is afraid to go to the private school his parents scrimp to afford. While at school, the boy tells people he's afraid of the police, that they'll take his parents away and he'll come home to an empty house.

"When I say goodbye to him, I think about the worst," Oscar said, his calm demeanor cracking.

"It's hard to lie to him and tell him there's nothing going on. There's a lot going on. And we have to communicate to this community, we have to tell all our neighbors, we have to tell all of them this is what we're going through."

He issued a call to the Asheville community: "We need to see them here every day until we get over this. Immigration is supposed to be here until Friday, but the damage they create is probably going to be here for the rest of our lives."

He said social media posts are helpful. But direct connection is better.

"To me, (social media) is a way to remain detached from what's really happening. Connections," he said, gesturing to the yard full of volunteers, "are made like this."

Ponkho Bermejo, another Mexican-born community activist packing groceries at BeLoved House, said the picture of people helping to get supplies to housebound immigrants was encouraging.

"You can see not everyone here is brown, so the white community is giving us support. This gives us hope," he said. "Some of us are illegal in this country, but are not scared to do the right thing."

Bermejo suggested many fail to realize just how important immigrants are to a community.

"They need to realize that we are the blood of this city," he said, looking toward the skeletons of hotels under construction on the horizon, where he said immigrants labored to build walls.

"Without us, you're not going to have rooms for the tourists. They're not going to have restaurants to go to because there's nobody cooking the food, nobody cleaning the dishes."

'We certainly stand for sanctuary'

Laura Malintzin, originally from Mexico, has lived in Asheville for 12 years. She spoke quickly in Spanish, putting out the small fires that spring up during any grassroots effort to solve a vast emergency.

Then she turned back to a reporter with a message to detractors, spoken in perfect, barely accented English.

"I invite them to come and meet us and have conversations with us, hear our stories and see how we are actually supportive to their community — our community. We're here. We're open to that conversation."

In the shade of a magnolia tree, Cantrell pointed to a nearby butterfly painting, a symbol of migration.

"I believe fundamentally that God didn't make borders," she said. "If you go up to another planet and you're looking down here, you will not see borders."

She said that, as a person of faith, she feels called to offer sanctuary.

"It's gut-wrenching, a sense of palpable evil, when you're staking out people's neighbors and traumatizing families and children, taking people from grocery stores in front of other families and children.

These are the things that we can't tolerate as a community. We have to say no. We certainly stand for sanctuary. This is our call and obligation. This is solidarity."