Immigration and the history of the Walla Walla Interfaith Sanctuary Committee

Walla Walla area asparagus growers first began bringing in Mexican farm workers under the government's bracero program in the 1940s. Before that, our crops were mostly harvested by local residents and U.S. migrants. In 1964, the last year of the federal program, about 180,000 seasonal workers from Mexico were brought into the United States.

After the bracero program ended, local growers continued to depend on Latino farm workers, many of whom came across the border illegally. In the 1980s the last non-Latinos moved out of the Walla Walla labor camp and the bulk of both field and cannery work was being done by Latinos, while Anglos had moved to better paying employment. Most of the farm workers at the time were Mexicans who arrived in the early spring, stayed until November when the field and cannery work ended, then went home to Mexico where the weather was better and their extended families were waiting for their return.

Immigration raids

The economic benefits of a large, low-cost work force were apparent to local growers and food processors. They were glad for the seasonal influx and growing year-round Latino population and wanted no interference from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which usually agreed to stay away. At times though, for political reasons or on the basis of specific complaints, the INS deported particular workers or conducted general raids on the fields and other work places.

In the spring of 1984, while Congress was considering an amnesty program for workers and residents who had been here for long periods, the INS began an apparent effort to deport as many illegal immigrants as possible before adoption of the new law. The Walla Walla Valley saw the most intense INS activity in many years with the arrests of hundreds of workers. I was acquainted with a number of these workers, many of whom had lived here for years and whose children were born here and attended Walla Walla schools.

These arrests were a crisis for the Latino community in the Walla Walla area since the closest immigration law attorneys were about 270 miles away in Seattle and they charged high fees. Because there was no practical legal representation available to many low income workers here, I began to take on a number of deportation and other immigration cases. I had become fairly fluent in Spanish through my work in Central America and with residents of the local labor camps. As the only Spanish-speaking attorney in the valley, I began to develop a substantial caseload which expanded further once the amnesty law was adopted with its promise of legal status to farm workers and other immigrants who could document their long-time residence here.

The Sanctuary Movement

This period also saw a substantial influx of refugees fleeing the civil wars in Central America, particularly Guatemalans and Salvadorans. Because of U.S. aid to the military regimes there, most of those fleeing were being refused refugee status by our government, spawning the sanctuary movement among religious people in the U.S.

In January 1984, I travelled to Seattle for an immigration law seminar in order to learn how to defend these refugees whose numbers were increasing in the Walla Walla area. By April, the Walla Walla Friends (Quaker) Meeting had begun to discuss how to respond to the refugee situation, and in early May the meeting began considering the possibility of a sanctuary declaration. Following several INS raids, on June 3, the meeting adopted a Declaration of Sanctuary which read:

"The Walla Walla Friends Meeting, a Quaker church, declares its readiness to provide sanctuary in the homes of its members to political refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala who are in present danger of arrest and deportation by authorities of our government.

"We take this step out of human concern and religious obligation. We are told that our nation's laws prohibit us from offering aid and comfort to Central American refugees who have fled their homes in terror. We find such a prohibition to be contrary to our religious duty. We are particularly concerned because our own country's military aid has been used against the homes and families of these refugees.

"We take this step openly, with full appreciation of the seriousness of disobedience of the law. We feel that not to offer assistance to our brothers and sisters in need under these circumstances would be a more serious moral wrong, as well as a violation of the U.N. Protocol Relating to Refugees, to which the U.S. is a signatory.

"We intend to provide sanctuary to refugees who we are satisfied would be in danger if they were forcibly returned to their own country. In the event of an attempt by the authorities to deport any refugee afforded sanctuary by our Meeting, it is our intention to use every lawful avenue available to us to resist such deportation.

"In the event any member or supporter of our Meeting is charged with a crime because of the offer or provision of such sanctuary, we encourage our members and supporters to sign statements of complicity and to present themselves to the authorities as co-defendants, since our act is a corporate one.

"We invite other churches and individuals to join with us or to support us in this offer of religious sanctuary through endorsements, pledges of personal or financial assistance, or through similar offers of sanctuary."

Our Friends Meeting sought additional support and resources through a request for the endorsement of its action by its oversight Eastside Friends Meeting in Bellevue and by our regional organization of Friends, North Pacific Yearly Meeting, both of which approved. Prior to giving general publicity to our declaration, we also wanted to organize a local interfaith sanctuary coalition.

The first meeting of the Walla Walla Interfaith Sanctuary Committee was held on July 17, co-chaired by Barbara Clark of the Walla Walla Friends Meeting and Sister Virginia Paul of St. Patrick Catholic Church. Other members of the evolving coalition were clergy or parishioners from First Congregational, Central Christian, White Temple Baptist, Pioneer United Methodist, Grace United Methodist, Christ Lutheran, St. Paul's Episcopal, First Church of God, Walla Walla College Seventh Day Adventist, Central Presbyterian and Christian Science churches.

In November 1984, a five-car caravan of Guatemalan refugees on their way from Walla Walla to seek winter employment in Florida were seized by immigration authorities in Kansas. The five families and several single men had been living in the Walla Walla area for approximately two years. All 23 of those arrested were taken to Texas where they were continuing to be held. The members of our Walla Walla sanctuary committee were able to raise sufficient bail to secure the release of the single men, while the families finally obtained release on their own recognizance pending deportation.

Although no other Walla Walla church declared itself a sanctuary, in January 1985 the Walla Walla Interfaith Sanctuary Committee approved the following statement signed by forty of its members, which was published in the local newspaper:

"We deplore the indictment of religious workers by the United States Government for their assistance to refugees from the war and violence in El Salvador and Guatemala.

"We also deplore our government's failure to provide fair treatment and safe haven to these refugees, as required by principles of international law and elementary justice.

"We believe assistance to the refugees in our midst is a religious and moral duty. In the book of Isaiah, we are enjoined to

Hide the outcasts,

Betray not the fugitive;

Let the outcasts…

Sojourn among you;

Be a refuge to them

From the destroyer.

In the Book of Leviticus, the Lord said to Moses, 'If strangers live with you in your land, do not molest them. You must count them as your own people, and love them as yourselves, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.'"

"We also believe that assistance to refugees is a legal right under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the free exercise of religion.

"We pledge our support to the refugees among us, as well as to those who may be persecuted for assisting them. We invite people of goodwill to join with us in this offer of assistance, and we invite those in need to contact us for help."

On March 5, 1985 the Interfaith Sanctuary Committee held an Ecumenical Service of Prayer and Dedication Concerning Central America at Pioneer United Methodist, led by people from a variety of churches. The Committee also carried on a number of other educational activities, including talks by speakers from Central America and local people who had visited there, films, the issuance of alerts on Congressional issues, information booths, and creation of a lending library on Central America issues.

In July 1986, we received a request to assist Carlos, a 19-year old Salvadoran held by the INS in a for-profit detention center outside of Houston. Many of his friends had “disappeared” in El Salvador, and he had fled when he could no longer leave his house in the war-torn San Miguel region because of fear of being seized by the military. At the time of his arrest he was on his way to Walla Walla to join his mother, who had also fled after receiving death threats earlier in the year. Carlos' mother raised a portion of his bail, our Friends Meeting advanced the balance and the Interfaith Sanctuary Committee sought additional contributions in order to create an ongoing bail fund.

As coordinator of the sanctuary group's legal committee, when Carlos arrived in Walla Walla, I agreed to represent him in an asylum application as I had done for several other Salvadorans. The problem was that the only immigration judge in Seattle at the time, William Nail, had heard dozens of Guatemalan and Salvadoran asylum applications both in Seattle and in Arizona and had never granted one, no matter how clear the evidence and the law were.

Under both US and international law, a person is entitled to asylum if they were individually targeted for repression or were a member of a targeted class in their home country, and had a good faith fear for their own safety. Carlos was a conscientious objector who had served as a volunteer with the Red Cross in neighboring Honduras. As a young single male in a province engulfed by war, he was a clear target for forced recruitment by both sides or for retribution for failure to serve.

Judge Nail, however, denied his claim as he had denied all others. We were aware that survival rates were very low for forcibly repatriated refugees once they stepped off the plane after being sent back home. Fortunately for Carlos and for another Salvadoran I represented, we were successful in challenging the judge's bias on appeal, the appeal panel granted them asylum, and they were not sent home.

Because of the availability of farm work in the Walla Walla area, cautious refugees were normally able to live independently and to blend into the general community. Formal protection by a sanctuary group such as ours wasn't as critical as it was in the urban areas, and neither our Interfaith Sanctuary Committee nor the Walla Walla Friends Meeting was ever called on to actually house a refugee, though we did occasionally provide work for Carlos and other refugees. Ultimately with the granting by Congress of extended voluntary departure status for Salvadorans and Guatemalans, refugees from those countries were allowed to remain in the United States until the wars there were over, and the work of our Interfaith Sanctuary Committee ended without incident.