A Guatemalan woman who has been living in a Virginia church for nearly a year is facing over $214,000 in fines from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Maria Chavalan Sut, an indigenous woman from Guatemala, came to the United States in 2015, according to The Daily Progress. She moved into Charlottesville’s Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in September 2018 to avoid deportation, after ICE ordered her to be removed from the country for failing to show up to a court date for her asylum hearing.
On July 4, Sut, still living in the church, received a letter from ICE, informing her of the $214,132 penalty, reported The Daily Progress.
The Huffington Post reported that Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church agreed to give Sut sanctuary by allowing her to live in the church. Rev. Isaac Collins, the church’s lead pastor, told the HuffPost that the woman would be sheltered as long as she needed.
ICE’s official website says that ICE officers and agents generally avoid performing enforcement actions at “sensitive locations” including schools, medical facilities, and places of worship.
The sensitive location policy aims to enhance “public understanding and trust,” and to make sure that people can freely participate in activities or utilize services provided by these locations without fear or hesitation, ICE’s website explains.
ERO’s mission is to ID, arrest, & remove aliens who present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety, as well as those who enter the US illegally or otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration laws & our border control efforts https://t.co/sQQAABLtQd pic.twitter.com/gKukzw53Tk
— ICE (@ICEgov) July 9, 2019
The Immigration and Nationality Act, implemented in 1952, grants ICE the authority to fine “aliens who have been ordered removed or granted voluntary departure and fail to depart the United States.” For each day the violator refuses to comply by continuing to remain in the country, a fine of up to $500 can be imposed.
In January 2017, shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for a collection of “fines and penalties” from “aliens unlawfully present in the United States and from those who facilitate their presence in the United States.”
Only a few days into July, this month has already witnessed several cases of ICE imposing fines of various amounts on illegal immigrants who have taken sanctuary in churches.
Edith Espinal Moreno, a Mexican woman who jumped the Texan border in 2015 and has been living in an Ohio church to avoid deportation since 2017, received a notice from ICE that she will be fined $497,777 for refusing to leave the country, reported the Daily Mail.
CBS Denver also reported that Ingrid Encalada Latorre, a young Peruvian woman who has sought sanctuary in Colorado’s Unitarian Universalist Church, was fined $4,792 for failing to leave the country after being ordered.
Another case occurred in North Carolina when Rosa Ortez Cruz, a woman from Honduras, was fined $314,007. A mother of four, Ortez Cruz took sanctuary at the Church of Reconciliation in Chapel Hill, according to The Washington Post.
