Montini: Phoenix already IS a sanctuary city

In a couple of weeks the Phoenix City Council may have to do something politicians would prefer not to do, ever – take a stand.

They either will defy President Donald Trump and declare our beautiful desert burg a “sanctuary city,” in the face of Trump’s threat to punish communities that don’t participate in federal immigration enforcement. Or they will back down.

However, no matter what the council does or does not do -- officially -- it won’t matter. Because Phoenix already IS a sanctuary city. As are a number of other cities and towns in Arizona. It’s not politicians who have made that declaration, but Arizona’s faith community. And they’ve been acting on it for decades.

Acting on their conscience for 30 years

More than 30 years ago I was in Tucson covering the federal trial of the religious defendants in what was called the Sanctuary Movement, a faith-based group of volunteers helping individuals and families from war-torn Central America find safe refuge in the U.S.

One of the defendants in that trial, Sister Darlene Nigorski told me, ''While we were raising many legal issues at the trial, the moral issues were partially lost. We became felons and criminals to some, heroes to others. I don't think either label fits. What we are talking about is an individual acting on his conscience.”

She was convicted (along with several others) and received a suspended sentence and five years’ probation.

All through the intervening years, and particularly over the past five or 10, other faith groups and congregations -- acting on their consciences -- have offered sanctuary to those in need.

Hardliners would label as criminals the refugees being protected and their protectors.

They don’t see it that way.

Will Trump arrest these guys now?

A few years back at Shadow Rock United Church of Christ in north Phoenix there was an electric candle in the window with a small sign beneath it that read, “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey you are welcome here.”

It was the Christmas season and the church was providing sanctuary for a hardworking Guatemalan family man in danger of being deported.

Pastor Ken Heintzelman told me his congregation looked at the situation this way: "What relationship are you going to have with history? The other piece of it for us is a reminder that the birth narrative of Jesus is really about standing against empire that would chew up our lives and spit us out. So, the birth narrative about humbly, gently, unpretentiously and powerfully loving and trusting in God, well, that's kind of what we're doing."

I suspect that President Trump’s ultimate immigration enforcement battle isn’t going to be with states, counties, or cities (like Phoenix). It’s going to be with priests, nuns, pastors and other people of faith.

Will he ask local police to arrest such individuals?

Back in 1986, after the Sanctuary Movement defendants were convicted at trial, someone clipped a sheet of paper to a banner that had been hanging in the group’s headquarters.

The banner read, “The truth will set you free.”

The attachment added, “Eventually.”