Sanctuary Movement

SANCTUARY A Story of American Conscience and the Law in Collision by Ann Crittenden (Weidenfeld & Nicholson: $19.95; 384 pp.) CONVICTIONS OF THE HEART Jim Corbett and the Sanctuary Movement by Miriam Davidson (University of Arizona Press: $19.95; 187 pp.

There was something about the chicken splayed across his plate that triggered Gene Baur's gross-out reflex more than 25 years ago. As quickly as you can say "Tofurkey," the Hollywood native swore off eating meat. This week, his Farm Sanctuary movement brought veganism to New York's Tavern on the Green restaurant to prove that Thanksgiving can be decadent without turkey, sausage stuffing and buttery mashed potatoes. That's no small feat for someone who once appeared in McDonald's ads and was known to toss dried noodles doused with butter into the microwave and call it dinner.

A two-part presentation and debate on the sanctuary movement featuring a quartet of religious leaders and public officials, including Harold Ezell, Western regional director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, is scheduled at the Church of the Foothills, 19211 Dodge Ave., North Tustin. The first part of the program will be held at 10:15 a.m. Sunday. The Rev. Arthur E.

Before Elvira Arellano was arrested by federal immigration officials on Aug. 19 outside Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in Los Angeles, few Americans were aware of the New Sanctuary Movement and its efforts to shelter illegal immigrants in this country. Arellano had taken refuge in a sanctuary church in Chicago about a year earlier, after a judge ordered her deported -- making her the first immigrant to do so since the 1980s.

In a decision that supporters predicted will drive the sanctuary movement further underground, a federal appeals court Thursday upheld the convictions of eight Arizona church workers for helping Central Americans enter the United States illegally Holding that sanctuary workers are not shielded from criminal prosecution by their religious beliefs, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said such protections "cannot escape the government's overriding interest in policing its borders."

Reform Judaism's national body endorsed the religious sanctuary movement Monday at its convention in Los Angeles, becoming the first Jewish synagogue organization to join a number of Christian denominations that have opposed the deportation of Central American refugees.

The sanctuary movement--a nationwide, church-based effort to help Central Americans resettle illegally in the United States--is not an exercise in freedom of religion but a criminal conspiracy, a federal prosecutor charged Tuesday as he launched his final assault on 11 church workers standing trial here for their sanctuary activities. "The drafters of the Constitution (and) the law of this land do not permit people to engage in criminal acts and then say it was a religious exercise," U.S. Atty.

Leaders of the religious sanctuary movement are "generals" in a three-tiered criminal enterprise that specializes in smuggling Central Americans into the United States illegally, federal prosecutors charged Friday on the first day of trial of 11 religious and lay activists in the sanctuary movement. Special Assistant U.S. Atty. Donald Reno Jr.

A year after eight members of the sanctuary movement were placed on probation for helping to smuggle Central American aliens, they still see the movement as vital and growing. Their prosecutor sees it as dead. The verdict "was the death knell for the sanctuary movement" and its sympathizers, said Donald M. Reno, a special assistant U.S. attorney, but as the government's point man on the defendants' appeal he remains deeply involved. The Rev. John M.

Churches and legal aid groups working with Central American immigrants have been the targets of break-ins in which intruders rifled sensitive files in at least 11 cities over the last 15 months, according to sanctuary workers and some officials who say they suspect the incidents were politically motivated. The most recent of the estimated two dozen break-ins occurred in Los Angeles on Dec.

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.

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.

Construction crews at Our Lady Queen of Angels are putting the finishing touches on a controversial new addition to the historic downtown Los Angeles church: living quarters in which to harbor an immigrant family facing deportation.

Three months ago, Elvira Arellano and her son Saul walked into the Adalberto United Methodist Church with nothing but the clothing they were wearing and a plan: to hide in the church's second-story apartment until the U.S. government granted her permission to stay in this country. Elvira, a Mexican immigrant, and Saul, who was born in the United States, also had an unusual cheerleader in their defiance of the federal government: the city of Chicago.

Disturbed by deaths among Mexican migrants crossing illegally into southern Arizona, church leaders and self-styled good Samaritans have begun offering a range of aid to immigrants--at times breaking the law to carry out what they see as acts of mercy.

In a decision that supporters predicted will drive the sanctuary movement further underground, a federal appeals court Thursday upheld the convictions of eight Arizona church workers for helping Central Americans enter the United States illegally Holding that sanctuary workers are not shielded from criminal prosecution by their religious beliefs, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said such protections "cannot escape the government's overriding interest in policing its borders."

Pope John Paul II lent encouragement to the controversial church-based sanctuary movement Sunday by lauding the "great courage and generosity" of those who have given support and aid to Central American refugees. Preaching in both Spanish and English under a blistering sun in this largely Latino city, the pontiff praised those "who have been doing much on behalf of suffering brothers and sisters arriving from the south."

Thirteen leaders of the church sanctuary movement pleaded not guilty in federal court Wednesday to charges of conspiracy and smuggling Salvadorans and Guatemalans into the United States as more than 1,000 religious and lay supporters gathered to protest their indictment. "Obviously, the government has stimulated people's interest in sanctuary," said the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr.

For nearly two years, Viraj Mendis has not stepped outside an Anglican church in Manchester. To do so, he says, means he will be deported to his native Sri Lanka and certain death. He sleeps in the minister's tiny robing room and dreams of walking in a park, but he stays in the church because he believes the British government won't send police in to arrest him--even though they can legally pick him up at any time.

SANCTUARY A Story of American Conscience and the Law in Collision by Ann Crittenden (Weidenfeld & Nicholson: $19.95; 384 pp.) CONVICTIONS OF THE HEART Jim Corbett and the Sanctuary Movement by Miriam Davidson (University of Arizona Press: $19.95; 187 pp.