Author: Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity

The Power of NEAT Community: Alex, Amy, and Calvary Presbyterian

Post author By Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity
Post date December 1, 2019

As a part of their faith, Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco wanted to make sure immigrants in the community knew they were welcome. After hanging an “Immigrants and Refugees Welcome” banner over their entrance, they began noticing person after person coming through their doors. Alex had recently arrived from Honduras with his son, and noticed the banner one day while he was working as a school janitor across the street. He immediately connected to their Sanctuary team, and accompaniment began.

A Calvary team member accompanies Amy and her daughter the day they moved in to their new apartment

Alex’s hopeful spirit guided their path as they accompanied each other to attend court dates, enroll his son in school, and connect to community resources. He always made decisions with the assured confidence that the rest of his family would join him soon.

His faith became reality when his wife Amy and three children arrived here in December after eight months of waiting in Mexico due to the Remain in Mexico policy. Overjoyed, their reunification came with the challenge of finding affordable housing for six in one of the most expensive cities in the world. The best they could find was a $2500/month studio, and signed the lease as a last resort.

By a set of divine provisions a generous individual came forward through the San Francisco Interfaith Coalition on Immigration (SFICI). The family was offered a lease an in-law unit for $1000/month. Within a week they were released from their previously signed lease, a congregant offered to co-sign at the new place, and Alex and his family moved into their newly affordable, spacious home.

HURRAH for Alex’s unwavering faith and the power of the IM4HI community!

After connecting Alex to legal resources and months of waiting and praying, Calvary team members joined together with Alex and his children in the church to welcome his wife, Amy, the day she arrived from Honduras

Amy and her children settled in to their new apartment after Calvary assisted their connection to the landlord

Living Sanctuary at Calvary: Learn more about how Calvary became a sanctuary church and accompanied Alex and his family on the Calvary website. The congregation has created a video about their experience: “Calvary Answers a Knock at the Door.”

Learn more about Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity’s Nueva Esperanza Accompaniment Team program.

Updates

Pilgrimage: Seeking the Root Causes of Migration

Post author By Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity
Post date November 25, 2019

An international delegation of 75 faith leaders involved with issues of social justice and immigration traveled to Honduras from March 18th to 25th, 2019, led by the SHARE Foundation, Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and Sisters of Mercy of the Americas’ Justice Team. We went to listen, learn, and witness. Our objectives were to bring back to the U.S. a better understanding of what is at the root of the flow of migrants, especially youth and families, from Central America (and particularly Honduras), and to act in solidarity with people striving for freedom, safety, and justice under law. Now, we are working to turn what we learned into concrete action…

Visit our Honduras Pilgrimage blog:

Read our 2019 Root Causes report:

Since 2016, we have co-led six faith delegations to Honduras who have deepened our understanding of the root causes of migration from the region: regional inequality, militarism, discrimination, climate change, national and global economic and political policies which displace and impoverish.

Updates

Reform LA Jails

Post author By Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity
Post date November 25, 2019

Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity is part of the Reform LA Jails coalition which is bringing a proposition, the Reform Jails and Community Reinvestment Initiative, to the March 2020 election in Los Angeles county. As people of faith we seek real alternatives and public investment to reform and promote humane and effective alternatives to the current system. The root causes of the carceral system and the root causes and conditions that lead people to make poor decisions must be addressed. Our faith traditions call us to be agents of healing, justice, reconciliation, renewal, and restoration. We are all worthy and capable of rehabilitation and redemption.

In response to community demands, in January 12, 2016, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to implement a Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission with the mission to improve public transparency and accountability for the Sheriff’s Department– but it did not have the power to subpoena individuals and records.

Two years later, Los Angeles is still plagued with misconduct in the Sheriff’s Department including deputies trafficking drugs, deputies raping female inmates under the color of authority, deputies assigned to narcotics skimming money, the continuous widespread reports of inmates being mistreated in our jails, and the countless “suicides” of inmates who were allegedly under the watchful eye of deputies.

To identify, expose and end corruption and misconduct in the Sheriff’s Department, the Civilian Oversight Commission must have the power to subpoena records and to compel the testimony of deputies and their superiors accused of wrongdoing.

The Reform Jails and Community Reinvestment Initiative will ensure that the Civilian Oversight Commission has the tools necessary to do its job. If passed, the Initiative will also task the Civilian Oversight Commission with developing a Comprehensive Public Safety Reinvestment Plan and Feasibility Study to reduce jail populations and to redirect the cost savings to alternatives to incarceration.

Come to our monthly First Thursdays Justice Not Jails gathering to get involved.