Faith-based leaders and immigrant rights activists outside Tucson's ICE offices.Listen:
U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva and dozens of congregations nationwide announced a new coalition Wednesday that will provide physical sanctuary or help the clergy giving sanctuary to immigrant families.
The group also put together a website with resources for churches that are offering or wish to offer sanctuary. The website lists six active sanctuary cases, two of them in Arizona with one more about to start Thursday.
A second church in Tucson will open its door to an immigrant facing deportation.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued an “order of removal” against Francisco Perez Cordova and he is expected to enter sanctuary at St. Francis United Methodist Church Thursday.
He will be the fourth case in Arizona this year and one of three actively living in sanctuary at churches in Tucson and Tempe.
Southside Presbyterian Church, where the sanctuary movement was born in the 1980s, gave sanctuary to Daniel Neyoy Ruiz for a month before he was granted a one-year stay in the U.S. Rosa Robles Loreto, a 41-year-old immigrant from Mexico, has been living at Southside since Aug. 7 and plans to stay there until immigration officials remove her deportation order.
A Guatemalan man has been living in sanctuary at University Presbyterian Church in Tempe for almost a month.
Human rights groups have expressed frustration with the lack of action from the White House on immigration reform and have said they are using sanctuary as a tool to keep families together.
The sanctuary movement, which resurfaced in Tucson this summer, is gaining attention across the U.S.
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