Source link : https://bq3anews.com/philadelphias-40-year-historical-past-of-shielding-undocumented-immigrants-started-with-church-buildings-hiding-refugees-from-el-salvador/
In the middle of a civil struggle, married couple Ernesto and Linda Fuentes fled their house nation of El Salvador and headed for Philadelphia, by means of Mexico, in November 1983.
Ernesto was once an activist who disbursed meals and drugs in Salvadoran refugee camps. Linda was once a union organizer for banks and clothes factories.
The Salvadoran govt seen activists, particularly suspected guerrilla opponents and union leaders, as threats to its regime. It positioned activists’ names on “death squad hit lists.” The couple determined to go away after receiving threatening letters and get in touch with calls.
With false paperwork and the assistance of a humanitarian church workforce, they arrived on the Tabernacle United Church in West Philadelphia on Might 12, 1984. The congregation declared itself a public sanctuary for undocumented refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala. An estimated 500,000 undocumented Salvadorans lived within the U.S. round that point.
The Fuenteses used the pastor’s workplace as their bed room. Church participants had been steered to stay the doorways locked and no longer admit strangers, together with the Immigration and Naturalization Provider.
As a historian of race and policing in Philadelphia after the Civil Rights Motion, and the daughter of an immigrant, I’ve been exploring Philly’s historical past of sanctuary and the way non secular congregations, activists and town officers have supported native refugees over the last 40…
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Author : bq3anews
Publish date : 2026-04-08 15:26:00
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