CHICAGO (ABP) — Most churches feel a duty to serve and minister to anyone in need. But if that includes undocumented immigrants, legal and ethical issues emerge that many congregations don't know how to address.
And it's no longer just border churches that confront the problem. Encounters with undocumented immigrants happen more often and in more places than some people realize.
Krista Gregory, a consultant with the Baptist Immigration Services Network, said she often gets questions about ministering to undocumented residents in Texas, New York, California, Georgia, Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas.
Her network, which is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, aims to educate church leaders about immigration matters and train Baptists to start church-based immigration centers that help address people's citizenship-status issues. The key thing Gregory tells them is that they should understand the law, not “be so scared of the law to not provide adequate ministry.”
Ministers must use common sense in their ministry, she said. For instance, picking up a known undocumented immigrant along the Texas-Mexico border and driving the rider a long distance away from the border is prosecutable. Moreover, employing an undocumented resident is illegal, so churches must ask about the citizenship status of each person they hire.
It's also against the law for a church to house undocumented workers in the sanctuary or parsonage.
In some situations, though, church members chose between performing ministry and obeying the law. Some congregations decide to break the law. Others keep it. Ethically, the choice is theirs, Gregory said.
Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago is one congregation that broke the law. The church has housed undocumented immigrant Elvira Arellano and her 8-year-old U.S. citizen son for the eight months since she received a deportation order. During Arellano's stay at the church, 9,000 people have prayed with her, Pastor Walter Coleman said.
The church decided to harbor Arellano and her son after four hours of praying about the situation. The decision, Coleman said, was based on the idea that God wants to keep families together. If Arellano is deported, she would be separated from her son.
So far, federal authorities have not removed her from the church. They say they will apprehend her at a time and place of their choosing.
David Lazo, vice president of strategic partnerships for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said he understands why Coleman's church made the decision it did. Congregations are between “a rock and a hard place” when ministering to undocumented immigrants, he said.
But the pastor and police chaplain also believes congregations must understand they are limited in what they can do. They are to obey the law, he said. In some instances, ministers must draw the line at simply praying for undocumented immigrants. Ultimately, Lazo encourages Christians to pray for a reformation of immigration law.
“Yes, I believe tremendously in not breaking the law,” Lazo said. “As a church, we have a limitation in how much we can help.”
But with all those restrictions, Gregory said, ministry to undocumented residents is permissible. Churches can give undocumented residents food and clothes and can allow them to be full members of the congregation.
The best advice for churches is the simplest: treat everyone the same.
“Don't ask people about their citizenship status,” Gregory said. “There's no need for it. Since ministers don't ask every person they help about their citizenship status, there's no compelling reason why they should when they serve a particular ethnic group.”
-30-
— This is the second of a four-part series about immigration.