Emma Lee/WHYY
toggle caption Emma Lee/WHYY
Clive Thompson reads aloud the letter that means he and his wife, Oneita, no longer need to fear deportation. They are joined by their son, Timothy, 15. Emma Lee/WHYY
After more than two years living in churches to avoid deportation to Jamaica, Clive and Oneita Thompson noticed some basic life skills had deteriorated.
The first time Oneita went to take out money from an ATM, she said, Wait a minute, what do you do again? . I truly did not remember how to use my card.
Sometimes, when Oneita wakes up in the morning, she needs to remind herself the family is free.
All Our Opportunity Was Taken Away : Sanctuary Family Slowly Restarts Life By Laura Benshoff | WHYY
Thursday, May 13, 2021
Clive Thompson reads aloud the letter that means he and his wife, Oneita, no longer need to fear deportation. They are joined by their son, Timothy, 15.
Emma Lee/WHYY
After more than two years living in churches to avoid deportation to Jamaica, Clive and Oneita Thompson noticed some basic life skills had deteriorated.
The first time Oneita went to take out money from an ATM, she said, Wait a minute, what do you do again? . I truly did not remember how to use my card.
‘All Our Opportunity Was Taken Away’: Sanctuary Family Slowly Restarts Life
By Laura Benshoff
May 13, 2021
After more than two years living in churches to avoid deportation to Jamaica, Clive and Oneita Thompson noticed some basic life skills had deteriorated.
The first time Oneita went to take out money from an ATM, she said, “‘Wait a minute, what do you do again?’ … I truly did not remember how to use my card.”
Sometimes, when Oneita wakes up in the morning, she needs to remind herself the family is free.
“I always have to tell myself that it’s real,” Oneita said last week, about five months after the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent a letter to the couple, saying that it would remove the last hurdle for them to get green cards.
WHYY
By
Clive and Oneita Thompson, with their son, Timothy, and daughter, Christine (not pictured), have moved into a home in Southwest Philadelphia after more than two years in sanctuary. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
After more than two years living in Philadelphia churches to avoid deportation, Clive and Oneita Thompson noticed some basic life skills had deteriorated.
The first time Oneita went to take out money from an ATM, she said, “‘Wait a minute, what do you do again?’ … I truly did not remember how to use my card.”
Sometimes, when she wakes up in the morning, she needs to remind herself the family is free.
“I do have that fear always,” she told
Christianity Today through a translator, “that somebody is going to come into the church and take me away from my family.”
Vargas is one of about 50 women across the US who sought asylum in churches, as a revived sanctuary movement emerged in response to President Donald Trump’s efforts to increase deportations and get tough on immigration, illegal border crossings, and refugees. Now that Joe Biden is in the White House, proposing a kinder, more generous immigration reform, the latest chapter of the sanctuary movement may be drawing to a close.
Vargas spent 31 months worrying that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could still detain her; separate her from her two American-citizen daughters, ages 7 and 11; and send her back to Honduras, currently one of the most dangerous places in the world. In March, she had been granted an “order of supervision” from ICE, saying she won’t be deported. But she, and others like her, a