Roman Catholic priests, nuns, and Protestant ministers were among sixteen people indicted on more than seventy federal counts of illegally transporting and harboring refugees from Central America in early 1985. The New York Times covered the Sanctuary Movement beginning in 1983 and continuing through the aftermath of the trials and sentencing. 

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1983

 

The Times coverage began on April 8, 1983 with an article on Page 1 headlined “U.S. Churches offer sanctuary to aliens facing deportation." In September, The Times reported that “More churches join in offering sanctuary for Latin refugees.”

 

1984

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On May 15, 1984, The New York Times reported on the conviction of a Colorado church worker on charges of smuggling two refugees from El Salvador into the United States as part of the Sanctuary Movement. Stacey Merkt testified, facing up to 15 years in prison and a $6,000 fine, that “she did not consider what she had done to be against the law since she considered the Salvadorans political refugees.” The Times reported that the case began “when Miss Merkt and a newspaper reporter, a nun and three Salvadorans, one an 18-month-old child, were stopped on a Texas road Feb. 17. 

 

On June 28, 1984, Merkt became the first Sanctuary Movement activist sentenced for their work helping Central American refugees. Her sentence was two years probation. Again, the Sanctuary Movement was on Page 1 of The New York Times under the headline “Churches and U.S. clash on alien sanctuary.” During her sentencing, Merkt told the judge: “We’ve already seen more than 40,000 deaths there, mostly all civilians killed by Government forces. The Reagan Administration continues to support the Government, the Government that creates the refugees.” 

 

The June 28 article also recorded that Jack Elder, director of Casa Oscar Romero, the Catholic refugee center where Merkt worked, had been arrested on charges of taking three refugees to a bus station, and that Philip M. Conger, director of the Tucson Ecumenical Council Task Force on Central America, faced eight federal charges after being stopped by border agents with Salvadoran refugees in his vehicle. 

 

1985

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The beginning of 1985 has the Sanctuary Movement back on Page 1 of The New York Times. A federal grand jury had returned sixteen indictments with more than seventy charges against Sanctuary workers in the first weeks of the new year. In response, activists said they would “put the Government ‘on trial’ for its policies in Central America and in dealing with aliens.” James Corbett, one of the indicted, said the government would “have to put the church in prison” to stop the movement. 

 

In addition to the Sanctuary Movement workers, more than sixty refugees who had been assisted by the activists were also arrested. 

 

Later in January, a federal jury, deliberating for less than two hours, acquitted Elder, who was facing up to 15 years in prison and a $6,000 fine. In the case of the 16 indictments, federal prosecutors asked the judge to disallow Sanctuary Movement workers to discuss their religious convictions at trial. 

 

In February, charges were dropped against Anna Priester and Mary Waddell, nuns who were members of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Priester was recovering from Hodgkin’s disease, according to The New York Times, and the judge said he dismissed the charges against Waddell so that she could care for Priester. “Both nuns said they believed the real reason was either the prosecution did not have a strong enough case or they did not want to take on the church."  

 

A few days later, Merkt and Elder were back on trial for new charges of transporting refugees. With trouble seating a jury, the trial was moved from Brownsville, Texas, to Houston. Elder and Merkt were convicted. In March, the judge offered Elder a sentence of two years probation on the condition he move out of Casa Oscar Romero and not speak publicly about the Sanctuary Movement. Elder refused the conditions and was sentenced to six concurrent one-year prison sentences. Merkt was sentenced to 179 days in prison, plus 90 days for her previous conviction. The judge also “ordered her to move out” of the refugee center and “not to speak with reporters.” 

 

In June, a third worker from Casa Oscar Romero was sentenced to prison time. Lorry Thomas was arrested on May 12 at a border control checkpoint and charged with transporting an illegal alien after a Nicaraguan man was found hiding in the trunk of her car. Prosecutors offered to reduce her charge to a misdemeanor, but Thomas refused and entered a guilty plea, saying: “I understand the statute and I understand that my Government holds that noncompliance with that statute is a felony. I also understand the Commandments and understand that it is wrong to kill and that my Government right now is bringing a war, an illegal war, in Nicaragua.” She was sentenced to two years in prison. 

 

In July, Federal District Judge Earl H. Carroll rejected a motion to dismiss the charges against the remaining twelve Sanctuary Workers under federal indictment on religious grounds, and granted the federal prosecutor’s motion barring “testimony, arguments, or evidence regarding the defendant’s’ religious beliefs” at trial. Of the twelve, one was a nun, two were Catholic priests, and two were Protestant ministers. 

 

1986

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After a trial that lasted nearly six months, a federal jury in Tucson, on May 2, 1986, convicted eight Sanctuary workers of conspiring, concealing, harboring, and/or transporting refugees into the United States. They were: Presbyterian pastor John Fife, Catholic priests Ramon Dagoberto Quinones and Anthony Clark, Catholic nun Darlene Nicgorksi, and layworkers Margaret J. Hutchison, Maria del Socorro Pardo de Aguilar, Philip Wilis-Conger, and Wendy LeWin. They were released on their own recognizance with sentencing set for July 1. The maximum sentence for the most serious of the changes for which they’d been convicted was five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The longest sentence faced by those convicted was twenty-five years. 

 

After the verdict was read, according to The New York Times, the convicted, along with their family members, supporters, and attorneys, walked out of the courthouse singing “We Shall Overcome.” 

 

“More than 150 spectators and reporters awaiting them outside spilled onto a downtown street, stopping traffic.” This was followed by a prayer service at the Tuscon Community Center. 

 

The New York Times noted that “The timing was striking” in an article headlined, “Sanctuary trial leaves a political aftertaste.”

 

As the nation entered into the celebration of July 4 in 1986, the federal judge suspended the sentences and imposed probation on the eight who had been convicted of helping Central American refugees. 

 

The Times article concluded: “With pressures on the Mexican border growing, and several cases involving Central American refugees pending, the six-month-long sanctuary case seems more likely to mark a beginning than an end to the debate.”