Called ‘Generals’ in 3-Tiered Criminal Enterprise at Trial : Sanctuary Movement Leaders Assailed

Leaders of the religious sanctuary movement are “generals” in a three-tiered criminal enterprise that specializes in smuggling Central Americans into the United States illegally, federal prosecutors charged Friday on the first day of trial of 11 religious and lay activists in the sanctuary movement.

Special Assistant U.S. Atty. Donald Reno Jr. told a federal jury in opening statements Friday that four of the defendants--a Presbyterian minister, a Quaker activist, a Tucson church employee and a Catholic nun--acted as “generals” or “chief executive officers” in an “underground railroad” that smuggled aliens from Mexico into Arizona and on to several states, including California.

The four are the Rev. John M. Fife, Jim Corbett, Philip Willis-Conger and Sister Darlene Nigorski.

Infiltrated by U.S. Agents

The self-christened underground railroad was infiltrated by U.S. agents in an extensive undercover investigation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service last year. That investigation led to the indictment in January of 16 sanctuary movement volunteers on charges that included criminal conspiracy to smuggle, harbor and transport illegal aliens. Three defendants pleaded guilty to reduced charges, and charges against two others were dropped.

In his three-hour opening statement, after more than a week of defense delays, Reno described the second and third “tiers” of the movement as the “transporters and smugglers” based in Arizona, and the “Nogales connection” that housed immigrants in Nogales, Mexico, and directed them across the border.

Reno identified the transporters and smugglers as three of the women defendants who are lay members of the movement: Peggy Hutchison, Wendy LeWin and Nena MacDonald. The “Nogales connection,” he alleged, was composed of a priest and a 50-year-old widow in Nogales, Father Ramon Dagoberto Quinones and Maria del Socorro Pardo de Aguilar, and another priest and religious school teacher, Father Anthony Clark and Mary K. Doan Espinoza, just across the border in Arizona.

Some Defendants Chuckle

Some of the defendants and numerous supporters of the sanctuary movement who filled the courtroom chuckled or shook their heads as they listened to Reno’s description of their activities in criminal terms.

“If this is how the government sees the sanctuary movement, it is tragic,” said Clark, associate priest at the Sacred Heart Church in Nogales, Ariz. “I’ll tell you this: It will take a cold day in hell for anyone to convince me that . . . what I’m doing is criminal.”

The sanctuary movement began in 1980 as thousands of Salvadorans began streaming into the United States during the growing civil unrest in their country. Movement co-founders Corbett, 52, a Quaker and retired rancher, and Fife, 45, a Presbyterian minister, publicly announced in 1982 that they were giving sanctuary to Salvadoran and Guatemalan “refugees” to save them from being deported to possible death.