APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – An Appleton church is declaring itself a sanctuary congregation and says it will help undocumented immigrants facing deportation.
This month, the Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship congregation voted to declare the church a sanctuary.
Katie Reiser, the Shared Sanctuary Ministry Committee Chair for the church, spoke to WLUK.
“We believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every people and we also believe that we have a responsibility to work for a more just and equitable world.”
After 96% of congregants voted for the move at the congregation’s annual meeting, Reiser says the church could now house undocumented immigrants facing deportation.
“We have a designated living space for them and we’ve recently remodeled a bathroom to include a shower.”
The church is also partnering with a law firm in Chicago.
But Republican State Representative Ron Tusler says the church’s decision is a nice gesture to help make immigrants feel more welcome. He said it’s nothing more than that.
“What they’re doing doesn’t have any legal significance, because churches don’t have any role in immigration law enforcement.”
Tusler also says, communities have a responsibility to follow the current laws, including those on immigration.
“We are a nation of laws. I think every individual in this country knows a particular law that they wish would be changed and the idea of ‘we’re not going to respect certain laws,’ isn’t fair to all the other people that are supporting a law that they don’t like.”
Reiser agrees there are legal risks the congregation takes by becoming a sanctuary, but she says most of the congregants decided those risks were worth taking.
“At this point no churches have been prosecuted for this work, but that’s not to say that that couldn’t happen.”
Basilisa Hernandez, the president of local immigrants’ advocacy group Unidos Por Un Futuro Mejor, appreciates the church’s decision.
She explained there are area families living in fear as the future of the undocumented remains unclear.
“The fear that one day officers show up to your house and come get your father, your mother, your husband, your son.”
This is the second Fox Valley church to make the declaration.
The Winnebago Worship Group of the Religious Society of Friends of the Fox Valley, a Quaker congregation, did so last year.
The Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship itself was once a sanctuary in the 1980’s. It helped a Salvadoran couple find asylum in Canada.
