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CJ Thompson (center) with his parents Oneita and Clive Thompson-Lewis (right), and his siblings, Christine, 17, and Timothy, 14. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
A Jamaican couple that spent more than two years living in Philadelphia churches as they faced deportation walked free Monday morning.
Oneita and Clive Thompson left the Tabernacle United Church in West Philadelphia shortly after 10 a.m. as supporters rang bells and speakers blasted choir music nearby.
They’d spent the prior 843 days in “sanctuary,” living in churches as a way to avoid deportation and becoming symbols of the movement that grew in response to the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.