Seeking Sanctuary In The Heights
Amanda Morales has lived in the Holyrood Episcopal Church in Washington Heights for four months. Morales — who lives with her three sons, Daniela, Dulce and David — is the first to publicly ask for refuge in a New York City church. The children go to school, although her mother can’t take them. If she took one step outside of the massive wooden doors of the church’s entrance, she would expose herself to deportation to her native country, Guatemala.
Morales is now a fugitive of ICE, since on May 2017 she did not attend an appointment with immigration authorities. For over 13 years she has lived without legal documentation in the U.S., having crossed the border in 2004 at the age of 20.
If the wooden doors mark a physical border, in the last year a series of presidential decrees and anti-immigration policies have created an impassable wall for Morales. She has “papers”: Her Guatemalan passport, the international news reports that say clearly how many people have died and continue dying because of the violence in Central America. By the time she decided to leave in 2004, the country was going through one of the most violent moments in its recent history. According to statistics published by the Programa de Seguridad Ciudadana y Prevención de la Violencia de Guatemala, homicidal violence increased in a 120 %, from 2,655 homicides in 1999 to 5,885 in 2006.
In Guatemala a criminal gang tried to kidnap her, and because of that she decided to cross the border. Despite this, according to the legal guidelines that ICE agents use, Morales is one more number in an infinite list of the “undocumented.”
When Morales took the decision to not appear at her appointment at 26 Federal Plaza, after having done so systematically in the last decade, maybe she didn’t think that four months later she would still be at the Church. They had accommodated her in what was its library. They set up beds for her and her three children among the book stacks and the crucifixes on its white walls. The parishioners bring the children candy, food, and coloring books. The only thing Morales can think of now is how much more time she will have to stay there.
Father Luis Barrios, pastor of Holyrood Church, opened its doors to Morales and her sons on August 27th of 2017. “We don’t know how long they will have to stay here,” said Barrios. “But we’re not desperate. We’ll keep them here for as long as necessary.”