The mayor of Springfield is calling for a church providing sanctuary to an illegal immigrant and her two children to be inspected for housing violations and is seeking to have the house of worship stripped of its tax-exempt status.

In an email yesterday to several city departments, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, who previously said he was “disappointed that (church officials) would use and exploit this family for their own causes,” ordered that the church be inspected for housing violations and urged officials to “pursue to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Please re-inspect the property in question for illegal housing aspects,” Sarno wrote in the email. “Also, please start the review process to strip them of their tax exempt status. Please again pursue to the fullest extent of the law. Thank you and God Bless.”

Sarno sent the email to Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton-Harris, Chairman of the Board of Assessors Richie Allen, City Solicitor Ed Pikula, Assistant City Solicitor Lisa DeSousa, Assessor Patrick Greenhalgh and Assessor Matthew Fontaine, according to a post on the city’s website.

Attempts to reach Sarno yesterday were unsuccessful.

Springfield-based activist group Pioneer Valley Project announced Monday that the Springfield Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition would be informing U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials that Gisella Collazo, an illegal Peruvian immigrant, is seeking sanctuary with her two children at the South Congregational United Church of Christ.

The organization said Collazo, who came to the U.S. in 2001, married an American citizen and gave birth to her children, was told that she had until yesterday to return to Peru.

“At South Congregational United Church of Christ we understand that we are called upon to love our neighbor and welcome the stranger among us,” the Rev. Tom Gerstenlauer, the Springfield-based church’s senior minister, said in a statement. “We stand with Gisella as an act of faith in the face of injustice, and as partners in building the beloved community of God.”