•Churches: Worshippers in hiding
Churches: Worshippers in hiding

By Carla Hinton

Published: October 30, 2007

When the Rev. Leonel Blanco looks out into the pews of his south Oklahoma City church on Sundays, he sees only half the number of his predominantly Hispanic congregation.

Attendance at Blanco's Santa Maria Virgen, called the fastest-growing church in the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma, has dwindled sharply — a 50 percent decrease that Blanco blames on the Oklahoma immigration reform law that goes into effect Thursday. "Four months ago, this church was very full, but now the people are nervous. They don't like going out,” Blanco, a native of Guatemala, said in Spanish through an interpreter.

"I believe that the law should be there to protect and bring unity. Instead of getting us together, it's driving us apart.”

Blanco is not alone:

•More than 1,000 individually signed "Pledge of Resistance” letters from Sacred Heart Catholic Church members. The letters are expected to be presented to Gov. Brad Henry's office today. The pledge was drafted by a Quaker and Church of the Nazarene social justice leader as a faith response to HB 1804 and adopted by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma. The letters from Sacred Heart support a copy of the pledge initially presented to the governor last week.

•An Interfaith Vigil of Prayer and Solidarity for Undocumented Persons has been planned for Thursday.

•A Catholic priest says the law is unjust and sinful while an Episcopal clergyman likened the law to the vigilante justice of the Ku Klux Klan.

But state Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, stands by HB 1804, the reform law he authored that has drawn the clergy's ire.

"I find it troubling that they would conveniently overlook the fact that providing services for undocumented persons with taxpayer funds is severely straining our social safety net for our own citizens. This is immoral,” he said.

The debate over the morality of the immigration reform law is picking up steam as its implementation date looms.

Religious leaders say immigrants have a right to migrate to improve their quality of life, but Terrill said it is not that simple.

"People have a right to immigrate where circumstances so require. They do so as their God-given right,” he said.

Obeying the law is tantamount to sin, since "there's a higher law than civil law. We need to treat everyone with human dignity.”

The Rev. Michael Chapman, pastor of Holy Angels Catholic Church, 317 N Blackwelder, expressed similar sentiments.

"Illegality is not as important as the dignity of that (immigrant) family — you have the right to migrate to feed your family,” he said.

Blanco said some Hispanic immigrants believe they are losing the right to move freely because of an increase in racial profiling by the police.

"They are not terrorists,” Blanco said. "This discriminates. It seems to me like it's bringing the Ku Klux Klan again.”

Blanco and Chapman said most undocumented immigrants are hardworking and don't deserve to be shoved out of Oklahoma. Many, they said, want to work to feed their families and often send money back to their native land to support relatives.

"You don't see Latinos on the streets asking for money. They are working,” said Blanco. "We are demonstrating that we have a lot of dignity.”

Rex Friend, a Quaker and immigration law attorney, said according to his religious doctrine, HB1804 represents "harsh and cruel punishment of our brothers who had the happenstance to be born somewhere else.”

Terrill said the religious leaders don't understand the law.

"They dangerously confuse the concept of personhood and citizenship,” he said.

"I'm a conservative pro-life Republican. I believe you are a person at conception. While personhood comes with basic rights — the biggest is right to life — I believe that is an entirely different concept than being a U.S. citizen which occurs when you are born in the U.S. and with that citizenship, comes certain rights. There is no constitutional right for an unlawfully present foreign national to receive anything at taxpayer expense.”

"There's a higher law than civil law,” said Taylor, who leads the largest predominantly Hispanic congregation in the Oklahoma City Archdiocese.

He said based on this divine premise, the law may be met with civil disobedience akin to the 1960s civil rights movement.

"When it's a matter of justice, there's no question about it,” he said. "We're solidly on the side of the people whose rights are being violated.”

Chapman said the archdiocese's council of priests placed its support behind a "pledge of resistance” as a way to civilly express opposition to the law. The pledge, written by Friend and the Rev. Lance Schmitz, minister of social justice at Oklahoma City First Church of the Nazarene, was presented to Gov. Brad Henry's office Friday on behalf of Archbishop Eusebius Beltran and the priests' council.

Chapman said immigration reform is so emotionally charged that the priests who signed the pledge hoped it would cause everyone to consider all the law's implications.

"Making a statement at this time is a way for us to stand up and kind of like they are doing in California, putting water on the fire and calming people down,” he said.

Blanco, whose congregation at 2141 SW 25 has gone from about 300 to 125, said he has told immigrants not to leave the state out of fear. He said the doors of his church remain open and he will continue to help those in need.

Terrill said he thinks the religious leaders are well-intentioned in their concerns. He said to break the law, a person would have to knowingly transport, hire, harbor, house or conceal illegal immigrants and demonstrate reckless disregard for the law with some underlying commercial or financial gain at stake.

"If there's something that is purely religious, educational, charitable in nature or other humanitarian purpose, then that would not be included.”

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