California pastor caught in immigration enforcement netBy Kyung Lah, CNN (CNN)The Rev. Noe Carias shuffles into the cramped room, his face immediately pleasant upon seeing strangers. He's well practiced in his pastoral craft of comforting parishioners.
But the pastor isn't in ministerial clothes. He sits down,
wearing a blue prison uniform. Carias' name is printed on a
plastic band attached to his left wrist. The Immigration and
Customs Enforcement officer tells Carias he has 20 minutes
before he needs to return to detention.
"I think first my lord, Jesus Christ," says the pastor,
"then my wife, my children, my church. I think God is going
to make a miracle to release me, set me free from this
place."
Carias, 42, is being held at the Adelanto Detention Facility, in California's high desert, for crossing the border illegally in the 1990s.
The Guatemalan native had been trying to correct his
immigration status since 2014, and ICE had granted him
yearly stays. That ended this year at his most recent
ICE check-in, when Carias was informed he would be
arrested and deported.
"I've never been arrested by police," he says. "I'm
a minister. I have my American citizen wife, being
married for 14 years. I have two kids. I support the
economy of this country and I paying my taxes. I
never commit crime in this country."
Carias is one of the undocumented immigrants the
administration of former President Barack Obama
considered less of a priority, as ICE officers
focused on deporting felons. Under President Donald
Trump, the policy has shifted.
ICE guidelines now direct officers to "take
enforcement action against all removable aliens."
ICE has reported that in the first 100 days after
President Trump signed executive orders on
immigration enforcement, arrests of undocumented
immigrants with no other criminal convictions were
up more than 50% compared to last year.
Aside from Carias, other religious leaders who have
been arrested on immigration violations include a
Georgia deacon and his wife, a pastor in Northern
Virginia and a minister in Oceanside, California.
'I'm not a bad hombre'
"We agree this government should remove the
criminal, the bad people. The ones who come to this
country to only do bad things," Carias says. "I'm
not that kind of person. I'm not a bad hombre. If
they remove me, that's a signal they want to remove
every people (sic) who do good things, right things
in the United States of America."
About 100 miles away in Los Angeles, the pastor's
wife, Vicky Carias, breaks down in front of their
two children, age 5 and 6. It's something she's been
trying to avoid since her husband was detained on
July 24, because the children don't understand why
their father was arrested. They know the Sunday
service was filled with tearful prayers and that the
parishioners, just like their mother, told them not
to worry.
"I just tell them, 'Daddy's going to be home soon.
Be patient. We have to just pray. We have a powerful
God.'" Vicky Carias pauses. She turns her words to
her President:
"This is hurting a whole family, my kids and myself.
The church, the congregation, we're all hurting. We
want to get things right. We've been trying to get
it right. Please, have mercy on us."
According to ICE, Carias is "a repeat immigration
violator who has assumed multiple identities and
nationalities over the years in order to evade
federal immigration enforcement."
Carias' attorney, Noemi Ramirez, says that
explanation oversimplifies her client's history.
Ramirez says Carias has never stolen an identity or
used false documents in the United States, but did
verbally tell immigration officials he was from
Mexico instead of Guatemala, because he feared
returning to his country and being killed.
Carias says he was kidnapped by Guatemalan guerillas
when he was 7 years old and held until he was 12,
when he managed to escape. In the meantime, Carias'
parents, believing their child was dead, fled to
Mexico. Carias says he eventually tracked down his
family in Tijuana but then continued north, making
his way illegally into the United States, to work in
the agricultural fields.
His first encounter with US immigration was when
Carias was still underage. Two more deportation
orders followed, the last in 1995. Carias slipped
into the shadows to avoid being sent back across the
border.
He built a life in the United States, and in his
early 20s he found God's calling and turned to
pastoral work. Carias met and married Vicky, then
had two children. He established an Evangelical
Assemblies of God church near downtown Los Angeles.
The family recently bought a modest home there.
Evangelical ministers see a challenge
To evangelical ministers in California, Carias' case
signals a challenge for their church, one the
faith's leaders and white members are failing to act
upon.
White evangelicals make up President Trump's
political base, with more than 80% voting for
him in the election.
But the very people being arrested and deported,
says the Rev. Juan Martinez with the Fuller
Seminary, are evangelical.
"The future of the church in the United States is
brown," says Martinez. "The church in the United
States will be browner than it is today. You're
deporting a fellow believer of Jesus Christ. You're
deporting a person from your own denomination.
You're deporting someone who might be in your
church."
Seven evangelical ministers and one Presbyterian
minister spoke with CNN, all urging white faith
leaders to do more in the face of detentions and
deportations of their Latino parishioners and
pastors.
The Rev. Zach Hoover, a member of the religious
grass-roots group PICO National Network, says as a
white pastor, he sees what's happening to the Latino
faithful as a moral turning point for all
evangelicals.
"I want to say to my fellow white evangelicals, how
important is the 'white' part of that? What are we
going to say to Latinos in the pews or the children
of people who were deported, who end up staying
here? What are we going to tell them we did at this
moment? That we walked with their parents or that we
had other things to do?"
The Rev. Ada Valiente with the First Baptist
Church of Maywood, California, says evangelicals
need to re-evaluate where church teachings
collide with secular politics. "What are the
real values we have?" she asks. "Is it just
abortion? Anti-abortion? Yes, we are. But we're
also pro-family. Family is important as a
country. If we don't keep families together,
what are we going to do as a church?"
In a statement to CNN, the National Association
of Evangelicals urged compassion in the cases of
their pastors and parishioners who have been
arrested by ICE. The NAE, which represents more
than 45,000 local churches and serves a
constituency of millions, said, "Millions of
immigrants are growing America's churches and
these immigrants need pastors. Instead of
routinely deporting good spiritual leaders, we
need to provide pathways to legal status. Our
laws are important and so is justice, compassion
and common sense that goes with the enforcement
of immigration laws."
Hoover, while crediting evangelical leadership
for publicly supporting the pastors, is blunt in
his assessment of the leadership of his church.
"No, it's not enough. It's not enough until this
stops, until we aren't sitting here talking
about a pastor sitting however many miles it is
from here in a terrible detention center. We
need you right now. Today you have a choice, and
we need you to choose to stand with us."
Alexia Salvatierra, with grass-roots religious
group Matthew 25, says the conversations are
happening within evangelical churches, but real
change remains slow. "We've been talking about
mercy in the church. But we also need to talk
about justice. The immigration system is unfair
and inhumane."
What's next for Carias?
Carias' attorney has filed a motion to reopen
his 1995 immigration case. As he awaits a move
by the courts, the pastor says he's ministering
fellow detainees at Adelanto Detention Center.
Included in his prayers is one for Donald Trump.
"I pray for the President. The Bible say, pray
for our leaders," says Carias. "I also want to
ask President Trump for compassion. I'm never
going to lose my faith. I love my family. I love
this country."
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