ICE Withdraws Excessive Fines Meant to Pressure Sanctuary Immigrants into Giving Up

Federal immigration officials have rescinded the massive fines they tried to extort from a number of undocumented immigrants currently in sanctuary across the U.S., including a mom who has lived at an Ohio church for two years now. Immigration and Custom Enforcement had been demanding nearly half a million dollars from Edith Espinal.  Edith has lived at Columbus Mennonite Church since October 2017, when the agency decided that a mom with no criminal record and two decades in the state needed to be deported.


The Trump administration dusted off these “rarely imposed” fines last July as part of a bottom-of-the-barrel effort to arrest families who are being protected from deportation by churches. Under ICE policy, houses of worship, schools, and hospitals are generally off-limits to mass deportation agents. So, ICE went with trying to smoke immigrants out of church by fining them amounts "so egregiously over the top,” one attorney said, “that it's laughable.”


ICE has been using our taxpayer dollars to harass and sweep up people just trying to provide for their families, including factory workers in Mississippi, construction workers who have spoken out about dangerous work conditions, and working women-- including Edith and Rosa Ortez Cruz.
 
Rosa Ortez Cruz, another mom in sanctuary in North Carolina, was being fined over $314,000. Advocates said the ridiculous amounts were intentional, too: The Washington Post reported that “In the rare instances” when fines were previously imposed, “they have been lower, about $1,000, said Laura Lynch, senior policy counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.” 
ICE has also done this knowing these are working families that have been depending on the generosity of congregations for shelter, and that have been trying to find ways to sustain their families while in sanctuary. Juana Luz Tobar Ortega, a North Carolina mom who has also been in sanctuary for two years, has used her sewing machine “to make aprons and pillows she can sell to the community,” and has “also started a catering business from the church’s kitchen,” where she makes tamales to sell.