Human Concerns: San Jose Diocese Backs Efforts To Shelter Immigrants
The San Jose diocese is quietly taking a key role in organizing a loose-knit consortium of faith congregations willing to provide housing and other assistance to immigrants who have been locally displaced for various reasons including "being triggered by some kind of deportation proceeding," according to the priest assigned by Bishop Patrick McGrath to oversee that effort.
Fr. Jon Pedigo, director of the diocese's Project for Peace and Justice, told NCR the goal "is not a sanctuary effort per se" and that "we do not want to create some kind of political statement, poking the bear as it were."
Meanwhile, two San Francisco parishes — St. John of God and St. Agnes — declared themselves part of a growing number of Bay Area congregations willing to provide ''safe refuge from the threat of a Trump administration attack on immigrants and refugees." Their statement was part of a release shared prior to a Jan. 17 press conference.
Both Pedigo and organizers of that Oakland gathering stressed they were also focusing on defense of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, an immigration policy that allows work authorization, Social Security numbers and protections against deportation for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States before age 16.