Sanctuary

Jose Luis Gutierrez is the mayor of the biggest city in Mexico you've never heard of, a sprawling suburb of Mexico City built by people on the move. And the charismatic Gutierrez has done something almost as unheard of: He has declared this city of as many as 3 million people a "sanctuary" for the illegal immigrants from Central America who pass through here each day. He has ordered his police officers and city officials not to arrest, extort or otherwise harass the migrants.

Frank Kennedy is a third-generation San Franciscan, the son and grandson of local police officers and the proud owner of a Bay Area business. And this week he became Exhibit A for all he believes ails his hometown. On Wednesday, a 21-year-old undocumented Salvadoran immigrant pleaded not guilty to murdering Kennedy's brother-in-law and two nephews in a case that has galvanized sentiment nationwide against this "sanctuary city" and its ambitious mayor.

A small group of Minuteman Project activists demonstrated Wednesday against this city's sanctuary policy, but their call for Mayor Gavin Newsom's ouster was drowned out by hundreds of chanting immigration rights supporters. Jim Gilchrist, founder of the anti-illegal-immigrant group, stepped inside City Hall, where he told reporters that Newsom should resign because of "his endorsement and support of sanctuary city status that led to the horrific slayings of the Bologna family."

Inviting a confrontation with city officials, the senior pastor at a venerable Long Beach church vowed Friday to defy a prosecutor's order that he block homeless people from sleeping on the steps and grounds of his church. Failure to disperse the 15 to 20 people who camp between the sidewalk and the First Congregational Church of Long Beach's walls may result in a fine of $1,000 a day, Deputy City Prosecutor Sayge Castillo warned in a recent letter.

A graphic designer, a gardener, a religious icon salesman, a busboy, a maintenance worker -- each of them facing deportation and separation from their families. These are the faces of the New Sanctuary Movement, which launches today with a goal of underlining the need for making immigration law more humane and curtailing immigration raids that have torn apart hundreds of families nationwide.

Sanctuary, in antiquity the practice of providing refuge in a sacred place, has been revived in a rather dramatic fashion by an undocumented Mexican cleaning woman trying to evade deportation by holing up in a Chicago church. Elvira Arellano, 32, said she invoked the ancient right of sanctuary in a desperate effort to avoid being separated from her 7-year-old son, Saul, an American citizen. That was nine months and 18 days ago.

Members of a Latino rights group say they want Santa Ana council members to declare their city a sanctuary for illegal immigrants, a designation that could give more protection to undocumented residents. The discussion about making Santa Ana a sanctuary city demonstrates how Latinos are increasingly concerned about the federal government's increasing crackdown on illegal immigrants.

During the year she has avoided deportation inside the sanctuary of a Chicago church, Elvira Arellano has become a national symbol for the immigration debate, with supporters heralding her as a Mexican Rosa Parks and critics citing her case as an example of government inaction. Next month, Arellano plans to provoke the discussion even further by leaving Adalberto United Methodist Church and traveling with her 8-year-old son, Saul, to Washington.

Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who became a symbol in the nation's immigration wars after she took sanctuary in a Chicago church last year, was arrested Sunday by federal immigration agents outside Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in Los Angeles. Arellano, 32, a single mother, moved into a Chicago church a year ago to prevent being separated from her 8-year-old U.S.-born son.

Simi Valley officials Thursday stood by a City Council decision to charge a church nearly $40,000 to cover the overtime and other costs for law enforcement officers who monitored an immigration protest last weekend. The United Church of Christ, a participant in the sanctuary movement, has sheltered a Mexican woman named Liliana who is in this country illegally, officials said.