Listen to a recording of the press call here
Silver Spring, MD – Last Thursday, ICE agents knowingly violated the agency’s Sensitive Locations policy and lied to Binsar Siahaan, an Indonesian asylum-seeker and six-year member of the Glenmont United Methodist Church, in order to arrest him and carry out his deportation.
In a clear violation of the agency’s own policy, ICE entered church property to arrest and detain Siahaan, who serves as the congregation’s caretaker and lives on the property with his family. This action is creating fear for those leaders fighting their deportation order through claiming Sanctuary. Faith and sanctuary leaders living in a church in order to keep their families together are condemning this ICE action and calling on ICE to release a public statement clarifying that it will adhere to its own policies and not enter houses of worship or other sensitive locations such as hospitals, schools, or public religious ceremonies or demonstrations.
“Binsar is one of the most devoted, generous, and loyal people I know,” Rev. Kara Scroggins of Glenmont United Methodist Church said, sharing what Binsar’s week was like at the church the days before he was apprehended by ICE. “We are baffled and enraged because there is a pending motion on the two parents’ asylum case. Binsar is not a flight risk, has no criminal background, and we are asking that ICE free him now and return him to his family and church until his case is heard fairly in court.”
“The federal government has torn this loving, faithful family apart. And all he says to me–all he has said since this whole ordeal began–is ‘Please. I have children. Please make sure my children are safe, please take care of them.’ The best way to take care of his children, to bring wholeness and healing and to respect the values of our nation and human dignity, is to release him and bring him home,” she added.
Rosa Sabido, currently in the Sanctuary Movement, said: “We the people in Sanctuary, protected by Sacred places, don’t feel safe with the new threat of ICE not respecting their own policies. Immigrants have been treated as third class humans and we deserve respect and justice. We call on ICE to publicly commit to honoring their Sensitive Locations Memo.”
Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, Baltimore-Washington Episcopal Area, United Methodist Church, said: “The sanctity of our sacred spaces should never be violated. This calls into question our Administration’s respect for communities of faith and for God’s people. This action creates a moral stain on this administration, and jeopardizes their integrity in every similarly situated immigration case. Our federal government is not exempt from acting morally and consistently.”
She added: “The United Methodist Church joins all people of faith in acknowledging that the family is the basic human community through which persons are nurtured and sustained in mutual love, respectability, responsibility, and fidelity. Binsar Siahaan is the head of a household. He has two children who are depending upon him for their food, their shelter, and their safety as American citizens. His detention prevents him from being able to provide for their care, security, and emotional wellbeing. Their father must be returned to them. I call upon ICE to release Mr. Binsar Siahaan immediately, to continue to respect church property as sacred and holy ground, and follow their own established policies and practices around compliance and deportation. Their inappropriate and unnecessary action in this case violates practice, policy, and the Kingdom of God.”
Bishop Mariann Budde, Diocesan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, said: “This is a time to make a lot of noise with constant demands for action. I would like to investigate who made this order. Who in ICE thought this was a good use of their resources and personnel to violate their own policy, and take someone who is the living representation of all that we long for in those who come to this country? And then, to send that person back to their native land leaving their family here to fend for themself. It is such an outrage! Here is our opportunity not only to protect this family, but to call into greater light the plight of so many who are seeking to do their very best, and being turned at every side by the brokenness of our system, and the inhumanity of those who are given license to act in ways that go against everything that we stand for as people of faith,as a nation of all faiths and of people of good will.”
She added: “This is an occasion that is devastating, that we across the faith community condemn. We will wrap our arms through the sanctuary movement in every other means we have to ensure those who are seeking refuge, sanctuary, and safety for themselves and their families know that the people of faith in this country are united in our efforts to be in solidarity with them as they find their way in this land of immigrants.”
Rev. Dr. Susan Henry-Crowe, General Secretary, General Board of Church and Society of the UMC, said: “The United Methodist Church has long stated, ‘To refuse to welcome migrants to this country – and to stand by in silence while families are separated, individual freedoms are ignored, and the migrant community in the United States is demonized by members of Congress and the media – is complicity to sin’ (Book of Resolutions, ¶ 3281 “Welcoming the Migrant to the United States”). Church and Society continues to watch, to protect immigrant families, and stand against all methods that seek to persecute our neighbors. We will stand together.”
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