After 461 days, Rosa Robles Loreto was able to leave Southside Presbyterian without fear of deportation. At left is her husband, Gerardo Grijalva.
After living in sanctuary for 461 days, on Wednesday of this past week, Rosa Robles Loreto finally got to see what we have all seen for the past several months — a community blanketed in “We Stand With Rosa” signs.
After a groundswell of community support, Robles Loreto was able to safely leave sanctuary without fear of deportation.
On Wednesday, as we stood together as a community at Southside Presbyterian Church and blessed Rosa and her family as they departed sanctuary, our hearts were full of deep gratitude for the Tucson community.
When we welcomed her into sanctuary back on Aug. 7, 2014, we had no idea the long journey that was ahead of us — but every step of the way, Tucson stood with us.
From City Council and Board of Supervisor resolutions, to editorial pieces in the Daily Star to over 9,000 “We Stand With Rosa” signs in our community — every day it was clear that my congregation didn’t stand alone but we stood alongside school board members, community leaders, day laborers, and youth sports teams — all who were the community of shelter and refuge that protected Rosa so that she could courageously lift up her voice for herself and for the countless other moms like her.
If courage is fear that has said its prayers, then after 461 nightly vigils at Southside and countless prayers that were said in houses of worship across our nation, we have become a courageous community that knows we are called by our faith to practices of welcome and inclusion even when our nation is plagued by narratives of hatred and exclusion.
While we celebrated as a community last week, we also were saddened, though not surprised, by the actions of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in upholding the injunction against the president’s executive action to protect from deportation both the parents of American citizen children and a broader category of those who arrived as children than were previously protected by his earlier executive action Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
But as the president’s efforts to shield a portion of the 11 million of our undocumented neighbors has been delayed, we know that there are countless communities who will not be delayed in responding to our neighbors who are fighting to stay with their families and in their communities.
On Wednesday, as Rosa walked out of the doors of our sanctuary, our hearts were full of joy and resolve: resolve and commitment to this work until our entire community is a sanctuary for all those who seek a life of dignity and meaning.
While we have successfully kept Rosa in our community, there are countless others who need our prayers, our support, our organizing to effect real and lasting change locally and nationally.
And so to the Tucson community, we say thank you. Thank you for standing alongside us as we stood with Rosa; as a community we can be very proud of the work we have done together.
And for the other undocumented community members whose kids go to school with our kids, who coach our youth sports teams, who sit next to us in worship — when you see those signs all over Tucson that pledge our commitment to Rosa, know that “We Stand With Rosa” means “We Stand With You.”
