Safe Harbors?

[Friedman, Howard M.]

Reports a few months ago indicated that the unofficial policy of immigration enforcement officials is to avoid raids on churches even when immigrants are using them for sanctuary-- except in cases where the immigrants or church publicly make an issue of it so that it appears that officials are lax in their duties by ignoring it. See:
http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2008/07/us-policy-generally-precludes.html

________________________________

From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu on behalf of Susanna Peters
Sent: Mon 9/8/2008 6:22 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Safe Harbors? 



I plan to discuss  this  NPR story in class sometime --
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94365290&ft=1&f=1001

It played yesterday about a church in Calif whose mission seems to be to
protect/harbor/hide illegal immigrants under a deportation order - but I
have a few question: 1) could the govt get a warrant to search the
church (seems to be probable cause) and arrest any illegal immigrants
residing there 2) if there were to be a prosecution of involed church
officials/members here would they have to rely on RFRA? would there be
any other protection for their actions?  I am assuming that the govt
could certainly search and arrest but refrains from doing so from
concerns about public reception - is that right? And, 2) that federal
RFRA provides the best protection for involved church officials/members
-- and would probably work (as in OCentro...). Is this right?
yt, Susanna Peters
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