SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – After living in a Salt Lake City church for more than three years not to be deported, Honduran immigrant Vicky Chavez stepped outside on Thursday with tears in her eyes as church members and friends rejoice and celebrate her newfound freedom.
Chavez and her two young daughters took a shrine to the First Unitarian Church in January 2018 after she said she fled an abusive boyfriend in Honduras and sought asylum in the United States, but was denied.
Chavez entered the United States illegally in June 2014 and was ordered to be deported by a federal immigration judge in December 2016. Following the call of her appeals in January 2018, Chavez took a plane ticket home to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. She rather accepted an offer of sanctity from the church.
Chavez said she received a notice from Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday that she had been granted a so-called residence permit, which limited her risk of being deported for a year.
“Vicky’s life is no longer being held back,” Rev. Tom Goldsmith, the church’s pastor, told reporters. “She leaves this church with a full understanding of the English language, a few hundred friends and the confidence to pursue her dreams.”
Chavez thanked her community in the church for protecting her and her daughters for the past 1,168 days and said she plans to stay in Utah.
“I have no words to thank them for giving me a safe home for more than three years,” Chavez said. “Today I can say that I am full of love and happy that I arrived here.”
Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson had tears in her eyes as she congratulated Chavez and called on citizens and elected leaders to have “more compassion” for members of their communities.
According to local immigration attorneys and the chapter on the American Civil Liberties Union, Chavez and her daughters were the first known immigrants to take a shrine in Utah.
She and her daughters slept in a converted Sunday school room and spent most of their time in another room with a TV, a donkey, and games.
Skylar Anderson, Chavez’s lawyer, said he was delighted with his client and her family, but preferred congressional officials to prioritize changes to the country’s immigration system and to make the process easier for those seeking asylum. search.
“There are millions of Vickys in this country – I represented a lot of them,” Anderson said. ‘There are not enough churches to give shrines to all the Vickys in this country. This land must be that sanctuary. ”
Alethea Smock, a spokeswoman for immigration and customs enforcement, had no comment on Chavez’s case on Thursday.
During his first term in office, President Joe Biden signed several executive orders on immigration issues undoing his predecessor’s policies, although several Republican lawmakers demanded legal challenges.
Others who have come out of the sanctuary since Biden took office include Jose Chicas, a 55-year-old El Salvador resident who left a home in Durham, North Carolina, on January 22.
Alex Garcia, a father of five from Honduras, left a church in Mapplewood, Missouri, in February. Edith Espinal, a native of Mexico, left a church in Ohio after more than three years.
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Eppolito is a corps member for the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that puts journalists in local newsrooms to report on national issues.