L.A. now a ‘sanctuary for refugees’

Press, 18 December 1985, Page 21

L.A. now a ‘sanctuary for refugees’

From

WILLIAM SCOBIE

in Los Angeles

Los Angeles, the “illegal alien capital of America,” has joined the long line of United States cities cocking a snook at the Reagan Administration policies on Central America by declaring itself a “city of sanctuary” for Central American refugees.

But opponents of the six-page “Sanctuary Resolution” warned bitterly that Los Angeles’ grand gesture would open the flood gates to a new refugee wave from south of the border to a city where more than 300,000 Salvadoreans and Guatemalans have already settled illegally. The resolution approved by an 86 council vote after an emotional debate, not only declares Los Angeles a city of sanctuary for Central American refugees, “who have fled their country for fear of persecution on the basis of their political beliefs,” it also orders city employees not to assist Immigration and Naturalisation Service (1.N.5.) agents in tracking down and

deporting “illegals.” “A total insult,” rumbles Howard Ezell, the Reagan-appointed Western Regional I.N.S. chief. In backing the United States Sanctuary Movement, says Ezell, Los Angeles’ city fathers were “allying themselves with Marxist-Leninist symBithisers who simply want. the nited States to play no role in Central America.”

Los Angeles thus becomes the largest city in the nation to challenge the Reagan Administration’s iron-fisted policy against political asylum for refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala, lands where the United States is backing Rightwing regimes warring with guerrilla forces. The two countries are specifically mentioned in the Los Angeles resolution. Since last February, when Berkeley, California’s radical-minded university town, first declared itself a “city of refuge,” more than a dozen cities across the United States have thrown their support

behind the Sanctuary Movement that offers haven, in churches and synagogues, to refugees. Some have simply issued statements denouncing the Reagan policy. Most have issued legislative directives ordering “no co-opera-tion” with the I.N.S. The aim, says the Mayor of Berkeley, Eugene Newport, is to persuade the Administration to allow some half a million undocumented Salvadoreans and Guatemalans to remain, unharassed, in the United States.

“Thousands of these people would be killed, tortured, or jailed if they were sent back,” he argues. “The Sanctuary Movement is growing faster — in both churches and cities — than the Reaganauts realise.” At least 250 places, mostly

churches, have declared themselves sanctuaries in recent months, in a movement that religious workers describe as being “steeped in Christian tradition,” and comparable to the “underground railroad” days when churchmen helped runaway slaves reach the north.

The movement is thought to have begun in Tucson, Arizona, a major staging post for refugees fleeing to el norte, where 11 church workers have been on trial for allegedly harbouring “illegals” and helping them enter the United States. The 11 include two Catholic priests, a nun, a Protestant minister, and lay workers. The I.N.S. contends that the trial is nothing more than another aliensmuggling case, and the federal judge trying it has barred testi-

mony about the defendants’ religious or humanitarian motivation. The 11 thus face prison terms of up to five years, and their plight is largely responsible for the lobbying effort that has persuaded so many cities to back the Sanctuary Movement.

Although Los Angeles is the only major United States city to declare itself a sanctuary, Chicago and New York have ordered municipal workers not to give information about illegals or otherwise help the I.N.S. in deporting them. Sister Darlene Nicgorski, a Roman Catholic nun on trial in Tucson, hailed the Los Angeles resolution as “a sweeping message to both sides in this battle. The cities are critical to the Sanctuary Movement, but offering sanctuary to these people who have suffered unbelievable horrors of civil violence is only the beginning.” Nevertheless, scores of local politicians across the country — especially black leaders — fiercely

oppose the movement. “In my district,” says Councillor David Cunningham, of Los Angeles, a black, “this is going to lead to more overcrowding, rent increases, more crime, worse schooling. It will drain more resources from our already strained city budget. We’re telling tens of thousands of Central Americans, *Hey, L.A.’s the place. You can come here and the I.N.S. can’t touch you.’ And that’s raising false hopes.” The Los Angeles resolution comes on the heels of a more strongly worded statement from the gay-dominated West Hollywood City Council, declaring that township to be “a haven for all refugees from political, religious, or sexual persecution,” and prohibiting city workers from helping the I.N.S. in any way. Nationally, the I.N.S. has rejected 99 per cent of the several thousand applications for political asylum from Salvadoreans and Guatemalans.