While the trial drags on in Tucson, Arizona—for eleven persons accused of providing sanctuary to undocumented Central American aliens—a Christian community in Comer, Georgia offers safe haven to a lucky few. Jubilee Partners, Inc., founded in 1979 by three couples and their six children, welcomed its first group of refugees even before the founders’ had finished building their own modest homes. “Here we were, sitting in a house with no windows in it,” said co-founder Mary Ruth Weir, “talking about what we could do to help the boat people.” At that time the U.S. government was permitting large numbers of Cuban refugees and “boat people” from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to settle here on condition that American citizens volunteer to sponsor them.
Jubilee pledged itself to find sponsors. As refugee groups of up to twenty-five persons at a time arrived on the twenty-six acre site graced with woods and lakes, the “partners” developed a flexible program of education to ease the transition to a new culture. Partners taught English, grocery shopping, and money exchanging skills. They took the newcomers on field trips: to the local police station where officers were friendly enough to help them overcome deep fears of armed police; to nearby farms and small businesses; and to the health clinic. Eventually, each of these refugees found a permanent home, and most found employment as well. Legality itself posed no obstacle at this time.
The situation changed in 1982. Even as Jubilee Partners hammered away to construct a welcome center of residential cottages, classrooms, and a thrift store, refugees from Central America —particularly from El Salvador and Guatemala—flooded across the Rio Grande River into Texas.
But Jubilee’s successful two-year pattern of extending to refugees hospitality, education, and sponsors no longer seemed plausible. In the case of refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) required more than it had of the “boat peoples.” Now, to obtain political asylum, each refugee had to prove the precise political nature of his or her reasons for departure. Stories of tortured or murdered relatives and neighbors; rape at the hands of military (whether army or rebel); evidence of bodily injury; and episodes recounted of personal danger could not, in most cases, be documented to the satisfaction of the INS. Since these refugees had wound their way north through other countries, notably Mexico, en route to the U.S., INS chose to assume that economic opportunity rather than political necessity had motivated their migration. This assumption accounts for over forty thousand Salvadoran deportees since 1980.
At this juncture, Jubilee, now supported by growing numbers of local townspeople, might have joined the newly formed “sanctuary movement” in order to grant privately the asylum denied to Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees by the U.S. government. Yet, despite their whole-hearted support of that movement, Jubilee conceived a different plan, one resembling the Underground Railroad devised during the Civil War period to help runaway slaves from the South reach free states in the North.
Don Mosley, a co-founder of Jubilee Partners, and Eric Drewry, a partner and specialist in immigration law, visited the Rio Grande Valley in 1982 to assess the refugee situation. Upon their return to Georgia, they approached a possible sponsor—the Canadian government. In retrospect, it was an obvious choice: a shared border with the U.S.; a sparse population in proportion to its land; a high enough standard of living to absorb immigrants in the long run, despite the currently high rate of unemployment; and humanitarian concern. Mosley and Drewry met with the Canadian consul in Atlanta. They discussed what role Jubilee might play to facilitate immigration to Canada for Salvadorans and Guatemalans. The result came to be known as the Año de Jubileo program.
Under this agreement, Jubilee agreed to find, prepare, and recommend Central American refugees for citizenship in Canada. The partners would even provide transportation there. The immediate task facing Jubilee was to ensure, as much as was possible, that the Canadian consul would approve the refugees once they arrived at the community in Georgia. This approval would be a primary factor in enlisting the cooperation of the INS, without which the likely consequences for the refugees would be arrest, detention, and/or deportation. Prospective refugees for the Año de Jubileo program would have to be screened in Texas with the Canadian criteria in mind: families preferred; no persons with strong activist or political involvements; no one convicted of criminal acts.
In a process going-on since 1983, every two months a large repainted school bus from Jubilee heads for the Texas valley to pick up a load of refugees who will ride the thirty hours to Comer, Georgia. Jubilee recently completed its nineteenth trip, accommodating in three years over five hundred Central Americans headed for Canada.
Although the INS officials in Atlanta approve of Jubilee’s efforts, agents in Texas show less regard. Before each of the first three trips, the Central Americans asked the Texas agents for “travel papers,” as a precaution for getting through the checkpoints stationed along the road leading away from the Rio Grande Valley. But when several refugees were arrested in the INS office as they requested the papers, Jubilee decided never to try this procedure again.
Jubilee raised the necessary bail money to obtain the release of the arrested group members, and established the “Paul and Silas Revolving Fund”—a fund that can be used over and over because bail money is returned to Jubilee once the refugees reach Canada.
Predictably, as tensions over the political instability of El Salvador and Guatemala have mounted in the U.S., relations with immigration officials have increased in complexity. Since Texas INS refuses to process applications for asylum filed by Jubilee’s hand-picked families, the applications must be mailed to the Atlanta office. This more roundabout process provides a paper-thin shield against deportation; a carbon copy is all that can be shown at the checkpoints if trouble arises. Still, out of nineteen bus trips, only two buses have ever been stopped for questioning.
The last leg of the emigrants’ long journey takes place two months after their arrival at Jubilee. After being screened again, this time by the Canadian consul, the refugees wait for clearance from Canada. Then the bus takes these future Canadians all the way to Toronto.
In the future, the Jubilee program may become a victim of its own success. Canada’s quota of immigrants from Latin America is limited, despite recent trends: 1000-person ceiling in 1982; 2000 in 1983; 2500 in 1984; 3000 in’ 1985; slightly higher in 1986. Even so, the demand for permanent sanctuary for Salvadorans and Guatemalans exceeds the supply of available places.
If the U.S. Congress were to pass the Moakley-DeConcini Bill which calls for voluntary departure status to end the deportation of Salvadoran refugees (Guatemalans are not mentioned), to give one example of legislation now pending, Jubilee could curtail its international taxi service and devote itself to teaching and finding American sponsors just as it did in the past for the “boat people.” Meanwhile, Jubilee is trying to secure sponsors in other countries besides Canada. Spain and the Netherlands are the most promising prospects to date.
