A pregnant woman who was to be deported for illegally entering the U.S. has fled to an Atlanta-area Catholic mission, where she is seeking sanctuary with her two young children.
Claudia Mariela Jurado from El Salvador recently cut off the electronic monitoring bracelet that immigration authorities had attached to her ankle. She absconded after she was asked to report to them Friday for her removal.
Now living in a converted office at Our Lady of the Americas Catholic Mission in Lilburn, Jurado said she left El Salvador because a gang extorted money from her there. A Catholic, she said she will stay at the bustling mission until “God decides” otherwise.
“I’m afraid for my life,” she said through an interpreter Sunday about the possibility of returning to her native country. “I hope that everything comes out right and I can stay here.”
A similar case in Arizona drew national attention last year. That’s when Daniel Neyoy Ruiz was granted a one-year reprieve from deportation after living for three weeks at a Presbyterian church in Tucson.
Jurado and her 1-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter are part of a surge of Central Americans who started illegally crossing the Southwest border last year. Many are fleeing poverty, domestic violence and brutal gangs in their native countries. Some like Jurado are reuniting with friends and relatives in Georgia.
The Obama administration is still grappling with how to respond to the crisis. Federal immigration authorities have been holding more than 2,000 of the women and their children in a pair of detention centers in South Texas. Last month, a federal judge in California complicated matters for the government when she ruled it had run afoul of a 1997 legal settlement aimed at minimizing the detention of immigrant children. Meanwhile, the government has been releasing others like Jurado and her children into alternative to detention programs, which involve supervised release.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pointed to a policy, which says its agents generally do not pursue people in sensitive areas like churches unless there are special circumstances, such as public safety threats. The agency released a statement about Jurado’s case, saying she “has been afforded full due process in compliance with federal law and ICE policy.”
“After she illegally entered the United States in December, a federal immigration judge ordered her removed to El Salvador following a comprehensive hearing on the merits of her case in April,” ICE’s statement says.
Jurado agreed to the judge’s order of deportation in lieu of filing an application for asylum, believing she would not actually be deported unless she committed crimes, said her immigration attorney, Chris Taylor. Jurado doesn’t have a criminal record, so she shouldn’t be a priority for deportation, Taylor added.
“We only have limited resources,” Taylor said. “Can we please go after the criminals, not the single moms who aren’t committing crimes and are not causing problems in the country?”
Phil Kent, a member of Georgia’s Immigration Enforcement Review Board, offered a different view.
“In the case of illegal aliens refusing to attend their court hearings and hiding in churches, such undermining of the law encourages the unending entry of foreigners who take jobs and benefits from Americans — especially disadvantaged Americans,” he said in an email. “We shouldn’t expect illegal immigrants hiding from authorities in houses of worship, or in sanctuary cities, to respect our laws if we don’t respect them ourselves.”
The father of Jurado’s children — who is also from El Salvador — is living elsewhere in the Atlanta area. Jurado, meanwhile, is sleeping with her children on a large mattress in an upstairs office at the mission. The mission has donated diapers and food for the family. She proudly pointed to a table piled with bananas, apple juice and toys for her children. The mission referred questions about Jurado’s case to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta. A spokeswoman for the archdiocese could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Claudia Valenzuela, El Salvador’s consul general for Georgia, showed up Sunday to help Jurado and interpret for her. The political leadership in El Salvador, Valenzuela said, is seeking to boost employment and crack down on the gangs that are prompting people like Jurado to flee.
“I will not deny that there are some safety problems in El Salvador,” Valenzuela said. “The government is now applying a new plan to fight against the gangs because the gangs are taking over some territories.” Jurado stepped out of her temporary living quarters Sunday to pray and then began to cry. Tears filled Valenzuela’s eyes as she spotted Jurado sobbing. The two hugged.
“She is a human being,” Valenzuela said. “The situation is really sad. It has touched every heart.”
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