Berkeley Votes to Be Sanctuary for Refugees

BERKELEY — The leftist-dominated City Council has voted to give sanctuary to refugees from war-torn Central America and ordered police and other city officials not to assist federal immigration agents pursuing the aliens.

“Let the federal government do its own job,” said Mayor Eugene (Gus) Newport.

The resolution was approved 8 to 1, with the only dissenting vote from Councilwoman Barbara Lashley, the lone remaining member of the moderate-conservative All Berkeley Coalition. The other members belong to the leftist Berkeley Citizens Action.

Eleven churches in Berkeley have already offered sanctuary to refugees. A nationwide network of churches participates in the movement that shelters aliens, mainly from El Salvador and Guatemala. Sanctuary activists consider the aliens to be war refugees who should be granted political asylum in the United States.

Deportation Sought

The federal government, however, classifies most of the aliens as persons fleeing their countries for economic reasons and seeks to deport them. Earlier this year, the Justice Department indicted 16 people, including the leaders of the sanctuary movement, on charges of conspiring to smuggle aliens.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, Newport, who is black, contended that “the first sanctuary system this country ever knew was the Underground Railroad for black slaves.”

“They were black people who lived in this country,” Lashley shot back, “not people from outside.”