Mariana Dale

The Republic | azcentral.com

Rosa Imelda Robles Loreto has been living in a Tucson church for 49 days to avoid deportation.

Two dozen churches have now offered to shelter immigrants facing deportation.

The sanctuary movement started in the 1980s when churches helped immigrants from Central America.

It started with a church in Tucson offering sanctuary to undocumented immigrants facing deportation.

But now dozens of faith communities across the country are inviting immigrants in the U.S. illegally to seek protection from deportation inside their walls.

They are part of a budding resurgence of the 1980s sanctuary movement, when hundreds of churches offered protection to refugees fleeing civil war in Central America.

This time around, church leaders say, they are responding to the federal government's failure to reform the nation's broken immigration system and counter record levels of deportations under President Barack Obama's administration.

"Our elected leaders have failed to act," said Alison Harrington, pastor at Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, which pioneered the 1980s sanctuary movement and earlier this year began taking in undocumented immigrants facing deportation.

"In light of this crisis, we are calling for a national response from communities of faith to declare sanctuaries for those facing final orders of deportation."

On Wednesday, she joined a handful of faith leaders in calling for a new sanctuary movement.

There are already 24 churches that have declared they are prepared to offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants and another 52 churches support the movement, church leaders said Wednesday.

The congregations' actions are a renewal of the sanctuary movement of 1980s when churches helped immigrants from Central America enter the U.S. and sheltered them when they were denied refugee status.

Southside Presbyterian in Tucson was the first church to declare itself a sanctuary in the 1980s.

In May, the same church opened the doors to undocumented immigrant Daniel Neyoy Ruiz. He lived there for a month before Immigration and Customs Enforcement granted him a stay from deportation.

Since then, immigrants have found sanctuary at four other churches, in Portland, Tempe, Phoenix and Chicago.

Harrington said undocumented immigrants like Neyoy Ruiz and others who have taken sanctuary in churches are not priorities for deportation because of their contributions to the community as workers and parents.

"Sanctuary is a last resort for faith communities," Harrington said. "For years we've been lead by our courageous undocumented brothers and sisters who have more to lose in this fight than we could ever comprehend."

Movement leaders believe immigrants are shielded from deportation because a 2011 ICE memo advises immigration officers to avoid taking action in "sensitive locations" such as hospitals, churches and schools.

ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley confirmed this policy remains. So far ICE has not tried to arrest any undocumented immigrants receiving sanctuary in a church.

In addition to the legal protection of the memo, church leaders said their faith drives their actions.

"For a large part, we are descended from people who were tormented and killed by unjust laws," Rabbi Linda Holtzman of Philadelphia said in a conference call with reporters. "It is very clear in my community that when we see an unjust law it needs to be disobeyed."

'Humanity' in issue

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., threw his support behind churches offering sanctuary to undocumented immigrants facing deportation in light of congressional inaction on immigration reform.

"It speaks to faith and it speaks to the humanity of this issue, which is forgotten in the political discourse that happens around this issue of immigration where people become numbers," Grijalva said.

Ricardo Ramirez, an associate professor of political science at Notre Dame University, said faith leaders have the power to mobilize large numbers of people.

For example, churches played a significant role in the 2006 marches that drew hundreds of thousands of people into the streets in cities across the country to protest proposed legislation in Congress that would have required churches to report undocumented parishioners to immigration authorities.

But he said it's unclear whether the new sanctuary movement will catch fire or how much influence it will have.

"Unfortunately, I don't think those movements by themselves will impact legislation," Ramirez said.

President Barack Obama announced earlier this month that he would not take any executive action on immigration until after elections.

He had previously vowed to take action to protect more undocumented immigrants from deportation before the end of the summer.

"If he were to address immigration through executive action, it might prompt Republicans to politic those actions in ways that benefit their candidate for Congress and the Senate," Ramírez said.

Lives of 3 families

In Arizona, three immigrants have taken refuge in churches to avoid orders of deportation and separation from their families. One, Neyoy Ruiz, was granted a stay of deportation; the other two are still waiting for a reprieve.

Luis Lopez-Acabal , a Guatemalan immigrant, remains in a Tempe church where he took refuge on Sept. 4. He spends his days practicing English and learning to play guitar. ICE denied his stay of deportation and advocates are writing to Washington leaders on his behalf.

In Tucson, Rosa Imelda Robles Loreto, 41, has been in sanctuary at Southside Presbyterian for 49 days.

She was issued a final order of removal in August, the last step in a process started when she was stopped for a minor traffic infraction in 2010. Robles Loreto is from Mexico and has lived in Arizona for more than a decade.

ICE denied Robles Loreto's request for a stay of removal, but a spokesperson for the agency said they do not plan to take action on her case.

Robles Loreto said her struggle is not unlike those of other families with uncertain futures in the United States.

"My goal is to be able to stay together with my sons and my husband who need me," Robles Loreto said.

Outside the 24 declared sanctuary churches, there are many other congregations that offer aid to undocumented immigrants and their families as part of their routine practice.

Latino Protestant and Catholic churches have significant numbers of undocumented parishioners, from 30percent to 60 percent, said Gastón Espinosa, an associate professor of religious studies at Claremont McKenna College.

Many of these churches offer services such as English classes, day care and legal aid as a form of evangelical social work, but they don't seek to be recognized publicly.

Instead, "they hope by their actions, they will inspire the immigrants to inquire about their faith," Espinosa said.

Republic reporter Jesse Millard contributed to this article.