Sanctuary church, supporters resist arrest and deportation of congregant
Samuel Oliver-Bruno was tackled by ICE agents while at a government office applying to stay in the U.S. on humanitarian grounds—and deported a week later.
Cleve May (left), pastor of CityWell Church in Durham, North Carolina, protesting the arrest of Samuel Oliver-Bruno, who had been in sanctuary in the church, outside of the Wake County Detention Center in Raleigh on November 26, 2018, with Oliver-Bruno's wife and son, Julia Perez (center, in green) and Daniel Oliver Perez (center right), and William Barber II (right), a pastor in nearby Goldsboro and national civil rights leader. RNS photo by Yonat Shimron.
For CityWell Church in Durham, North Carolina, Samuel Oliver-Bruno’s arrest on November 23 when he appeared for fingerprinting at an office of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency opened a wound.
Two days after government agents forcibly detained Oliver-Bruno, an undocumented immigrant who had taken sanctuary at the multicultural United Methodist church, congregants stood up one after another at a Sunday service to cry out in protest.
“We have suffered the betrayal of our government,” said one member.
