For three and a half years – 1,252 days to be exact – Alex Garcia spent every day and every night at Christ Church UCC in Maplewood. Garcia, who took sanctuary in the church under threat of deportation September 21, 2017, was able to go home for the first time on Wednesday, thanks to the Biden administration’s new immigration priorities list and following advocacy on his behalf by U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri).
Garcia first entered the southern border of the United States in 2000 in order to escape violence in his home country, Honduras, however, he was detained at the border and given an order of deportation.
Then, in 2006, Garcia returned to the United States again, this time crossing the border undetected. He went to Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where he was deeply engaged in his community and he and his new wife, Carly Garcia, had five children. After spending 11 years in Missouri, though, he received a notice that he was to be deported under the new ‘zero-tolerance’ policies of Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE).
So he waited in the church, visited occasionally by his wife and five children. They commuted two-and-a-half hours one way each weekend to see him. His family eventually moved to Maplewood to be near him when they realized Garcia’s stay at Christ Church would be less temporary than any of them initially intended.
On Monday, Congresswoman Cori Bush announced a private bill – that is, a piece of legislation that if passed would only apply to Garcia – which would give him a path to legal permanent resident status. Then, on Wednesday, the Garcia family released a statement saying that Alex would be going home, as ICE had “stated unequivocally” that he was no longer a priority for deportation.
“It’s been three and a half years of his young children being asked, ‘Why does your dad live in a church?’ It’s a question they don’t have an answer to – they don’t know why their dad cannot come home,” Bush said in a Zoom press conference Monday, alongside Garcia’s lawyer Nicole Cortés and Pastor Becky Turner of Christ Church UCC.
She noted that there have only been four such bills signed into law since 2017, so the odds that this bill will pass are slim. “But that will not discourage us, because what we see when we see those four bills … is hope. We see it as a possibility and as an opportunity,” Bush said. Her predecessor in the 1st District, William Lacy Clay, proposed a similar bill in 2019, which stalled in committee.
In the early months of the previous administration, according to Sarah John with the St. Louis Interfaith Committee on Latin America, local houses of worship started talking about bringing sanctuary churches back, which actually began in the 1980s. “For many congregations, that was a process of education…a process of building relationships with a community that many had not had the opportunity to reach yet,” John said. Around this same time, she met Alex and Carly Garcia, and “Alex made the decision to move into sanctuary at Christ Church, in order to fight for that right to stay with his family permanently in Missouri.”
If Garcia were to be deported to Honduras, John explained, he would have to remain outside the country for a decade before getting the chance to return to his family.
Nicole Cortés, Garcia’s immigration attorney and cofounder and director of the St. Louis Migrant and Immigrant Community Action (MICA) Project, explained that Garcia’s stay in the church was never meant to last as long as it has. This bill, she said, might provide him with a better option, “enabling him to stay with his family forever.”
Bush noted that the bill only needs to pass the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship in order to allow Garcia some relief. “Even before it becomes law…Alex will be granted a stay of removal for the duration of the 117th Congress,” Bush said. She also noted that Garcia’s case is just one of many – and reiterated a desire for President Joe Biden to keep one of his campaign promises and end all family separation by immigration enforcement.
“Today, we are extending a hand of partnership to the Biden administration,” Bush stated. “[Garcia] deserves dignity and freedom, and just like we expect you to end all family separations, Mr. President, we also expect you to help us allow Alex to be with his.”
Meanwhile, the same day that Bush convened this press conference, Biden’s actions on the immigration front were decidedly mixed: reportedly reopening a facility to house teen migrants who crossed the border without adults; on the other hand, he introduced a bill creating a new eight-year path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Alex and Carly Garcia also spoke at the press conference about the possible futures of their own family. While ICE’s promise that he is not a deportation priority grants him temporary relief, Bush has stated that she will continue to press forward with the private bill in order to ensure that he can stay in Missouri permanently.
“I miss spending time with my family outside of the church walls,” Alex Garcia stated over Zoom from Christ Church, his wife holding his arm. “It has been very hard for me, watching my babies grow up and learn without me being by their side.” Garcia hopes that the private bill in his name will show a path forward for other immigrants in sanctuary like himself. “Because we aren’t just fighting to be heard, we are fighting for freedom and family unity for all.”