Jury in Texas Acquits Sanctuary Worker of Transporting Salvadoran Refugees

A sanctuary movement worker was acquitted Thursday of illegally transporting Salvadoran refugees.

“I’ve been confident all along,” said Jack Elder, who silently bowed his head as the verdict was read.

The seven-man, five-woman federal court jury deliberated less than two hours before finding Elder, the director of Casa Oscar Romero, a halfway house for Central Americans in San Benito, Tex., not guilty.

Jurors leaving the courtroom said that the government did not prove that Elder was trying to further the illegal journey of the Salvadorans by taking them to a bus station in Harlingen so they could go to Houston. Elder, 41, faced up to 15 years in prison and fines totaling $6,000, if convicted.

Elder has maintained that he was acting out of his religious convictions and was being singled out by the government for prosecution.

Federal officials have repeatedly maintained that Central Americans entering the U.S. illegally are seeking economic betterment--not political asylum, as the sanctuary movement claims.

In Tucson, where a conference on the church sanctuary movement has drawn more than 1,000 religious and lay supporters, participants broke into a whistling, standing ovation when Elder’s acquittal was announced.

“What a triumph,” shouted Rodrigo Garcia, a Guatemalan who lives in a church sanctuary in Texas and is one of a number of Central American immigrants at the conference.

The Rev. John M. Fife of Tucson, one of 16 sanctuary movement leaders charged with conspiracy and smuggling Central Americans in a separate case, said that Elder’s acquittal is important for its impact on public opinion.

“I don’t think it will have any impact on our legal question,” he said. “What’s really important is the awareness of the American people about refugees, about what is legal and illegal, faithful and unfaithful. The American people ultimately are going to decide this, not a judge.”

The Elder prosecution was the second against sanctuary movement workers in Texas.

Stacey Lynn Merkt, 30, who works at Casa Romero, is on two years’ probation for her conviction last May on similar charges. She and Elder face another trial on charges of transporting illegal aliens on Feb. 5 in Brownsville federal court.