Your March 29 opinion piece about the South Congregational Church in Springfield granting “sanctuary” to an illegal alien does not identify the crux of the problem: Mayor Sarno is confusing today’s secular political definition of “sanctuary city,” with the Christian religious tradition of sanctuary for criminals.
As a Christian, Sarno surely knows about Christ’s admonition to ”Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, but unto God the things that are God’s”. This means that it is completely reasonable for a country to control its borders and limit the numbers of foreigners who wish to immigrate. It is also completely reasonable for religious organizations to offer support, food, medical help, shelter, etc. to illegal aliens who manage to get into the country, rather than standing by and watching them starve and freeze. Most of us would probably say that offering “sanctuary” to protect them from legal deportation proceedings is “over the top”, but it certainly falls within the traditional religious understanding of sanctuary for criminals.
For the mayor to claim that the city will somehow be in danger of losing federal monies because some random church protects an illegal alien or two, is absurd. The current Republican administration and the president himself are strong defenders of the First Amendment’s protections of religious faith. They would never confuse the South Congregational Church with the city administration. Mayor Sarno has nothing to “fear,” and he knows it.
About the larger question of whether or not Gisella Collazo should be deported, we must remember how it happened that she could possibly still be in this country illegally after 17 years. The Democrat Party has brought this tragedy to Collazo and the other 20 million illegals whom their policies have literally “invited” into this country. The Democrat Party has supported open borders and has fought every effort to reduce the flow of illegal entrants to this country since the days of Ted Kennedy. Liberal judges have “granted” rights that used to be reserved to citizens, to allow those who are caught to remain. A recent Democrat president unconstitutionally “legalized” 800,000 aliens. Sympathizing bureaucrats at all levels of government have made deporting even alien criminals more difficult by refusing to assist ICE in holding them. When the tears start flowing over the “injustice of it all”, remember that if the borders had been closed and controlled 30 years ago, comprehensive immigration reform would have passed 29 years ago in a bipartisan landslide led by Republicans. The Democrat Party owns all the tears, despair, injustice that their policies have caused, and they continue to stand in the way of serious border controls that would eventually curtail these tragic situations.
R. Patrick Henry Jr.
East Longmeadow
