Cambridge Church Will House Salvadoran Refugee for 2 Weeks

A Cambridge church will open its doors today to a Salvadoran refugee, whom church officials say is feeling death squads in her country.

The Old Cambridge Baptist Church, located at 1151 Massachusetts Ave. will join a nationwide sanctuary movement of 170 churches that grant refuge to Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees who would otherwise be deported back to their countries by the federal government.

"Estela" the refugee's pseudonym created to protect her family in El Salvador, will arrive this afternoon and stay in Cambridge for two weeks.

The El Salvadoran government has arrested and tortured Estela three times because of her union organizing activities according to a press release issued yesterday by the Cambridge Church. She has three children, and right-wing death squads allegedly killed her husband.

Although the publicity surrounding the church's decision to accept Salvadoran refugees would make it easy for authorities to arrest either Estela or church officials, Peggy Smith, one of the eight members on the church's sanctuary task force, said the sanctuary movement is effective because of its public protest.

Under U.S. immigration laws the church officials face a possible five-year prison sentence and a $2,000 fine if they are convicted of harboring Central American refugees, said a spokesman for the Chicago Religion Task Force on Central America, the organization coordinating the transportation and placement of El Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees into U.S. churches.

An official at the Boston Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) who declined to be identified said yesterday that the INS was not planning an arrest. He refused to comment further.

Officials at INS national headquarters and the U.S. State Department were not available for comment yesterday.

Thomas Professor of Divinity Harvey G. Cox, who is a member of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church, said the current administration will not grant the refugees asylum in the United States for political reasons.

"To accept [the refugees] as political refugees would mean the United States is admitting that the Salvadoran and Guatemalan governments are oppressing their people," Cox said.

At least 10,000 Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees have been deported by the U.S. government according to the Chicago Task Force's figures.