For Illegal Aliens : ‘Safe House’ Open in L.A., Students Say

Students from nine Southern California colleges and universities have banded together to open an off-campus “safe house” somewhere in Los Angeles for Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees who are in the United States illegally.

Opening of the student-financed shelter--the first such facility in the nation, according to its sponsors--was announced Thursday as 11 Sanctuary Movement workers were about to go on trial in Arizona on charges of smuggling and harboring illegal aliens from Central America.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service in Los Angeles said that what the students are doing is a crime punishable by up to five years in jail and fines of $2,000 for each alien harbored.

“It’s a well-known fact that under federal law it’s a felony to harbor, shelter or transport an illegal alien,” INS spokesman John Belluardo said. “The INS would certainly be interested in investigating this matter further if anyone would provide us with any good information.” Beyond that, Belluardo said, he suspects that the announcement of the “safe house” was “a publicity stunt.”

“It’s interesting to note the timing of this,” Belluardo said. “It happens to coincide with the trial in Tucson of the Sanctuary Movement. Perhaps this is being used as a smoke-screen or publicity stunt to garner public support for their cause.”

The students, however, say the “safe house” has been in the works for months and that the timing of their announcement was “purely coincidental.”

The students also say they are not afraid of jail.

“We feel that the risks we are facing are far outweighed by the risks that the refugees themselves face by coming here and staying here,” said Mike Abbott, a post-doctoral fellow at UCLA.

“We don’t feel we’re doing anything illegal,” he said. “We feel it is the Reagan Administration which is actually breaking the law by denying these individuals political asylum and by deporting them back to places like El Salvador (where) civil war and death squads have caused a large number of people to flee.”

In Tucson, the 11 Catholic and Protestant church and lay workers accused of smuggling illegal aliens say they are abiding by their age-old right to provide sanctuary to those in need and that it is really the Administration’s Central American and immigration policies that are on trial.

The new Los Angeles “safe house”--which is now in operation housing a family of Salvadoran illegals--underscores an escalating participation in the Sanctuary Movement on area campuses, Abbott said.

But until now, action has been confined to individual colleges and universities, where activities have included the formation of “sanctuary clubs,” fund-raising events to aid others working in the movement, and in one case providing emergency shelter to a Salvadoran family in Riverside in 1984.

“Now we’re combining our efforts into a new coalition,” Abbott said.

He said the new group, called the Inter-Campus Sanctuary Network, is made of up a core of “about 30” activists at UCLA, USC, the University of California campuses at Riverside and Santa Barbara, California State University, Northridge, Pomona College, Pitzer College, Scripps College and the Claremont School of Theology.

Student governments at all nine institutions have declared their campuses “sanctuaries,” Abbott said, but the designation is symbolic. No illegal aliens will be housed on school property.

The network leaders are primarily students, but also include faculty and staff members at some of the colleges, Abbott said. While the Sanctuary Movement claims the backing of about 275 churches and synagogues across the nation, Abbott said the new network is not affiliated with any religious group.

The students will pay rent and utility bills for the “safe house” and will provide food for the refugees. Abbott estimates the costs at about $1,000 a month. Selection of the home’s occupants will be made by the Central American Refugee Center in Los Angeles.

The network also will help refugees with English lessons, offer legal assistance and help in other ways “to acquaint them with the everyday problems of living in the U.S.,” Abbott said.