Mother Facing Deportation Takes Sanctuary In UWS Church

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A mother of two United States-born children is seeking sanctuary from deportation at an Upper West Side church.

Aura Hernandez, 37, came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala 13 years ago, according to the immigrants-rights group New Sanctuary Coalition. Hernandez was fleeing domestic violence in her native country, and fears that she and her children will be under threat of violence should she return.

"I can’t protect her in Guatemala," Hernandez said of her 14-month-old daughter Camila. "So I fight for her to be here — protected and united and together with her family."

The mother and daughter have been living in The Fourth Universalist Society church on the Upper West Side since Hernandez made the decision to seek sanctuary two weeks ago. Hernandez' second child, a boy named Daniel, is 10-years-old. The mother of two is currently facing an order of deportation from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Hernandez's deportation order stems from a missed court appearance in Texas dating back to 2005, the New York Times first reported. In 2005, Hernandez entered the United States by crossing into Texas by the Mexican border, the Times reported. Shortly after, she was arrested by border patrol and released after a three-day detention, according to the report. Hernandez never read the papers she was given due to the traumatizing experience of the detention, the Times reported.

Hernandez, who crossed the border with her nephew, claims that she was sexually abused by a border patrol officer during her detention in Texas, according to New Sanctuary Coalition. The mother was unaware of the deportation order until she was stopped for driving the wrong way down a one-way street in Mamaroneck in 2013, the Times reported.

"Aura is declaring sanctuary so she can seek out the justice that has been denied by ICE and receive the due process that has not been followed," Rev. Juan Carlos Ruiz of the New Sanctuary Coalition said in a statement.

The Fourth Universalist Society was founded in 1838 in Lower Manhattan and moved into its current home on the Upper West Side in 1898, according to its website. The church's congregation follows the beliefs of Unitarian Universalism, which promotes "values of peace, love, and understanding," according to its website.

The church is well-known on the Upper West Side for its liberal political leanings. In 2017, vandals carved a swastika into the doors of the church. The church hosted an interfaith "gathering of solidarity, hope and action," later that year.

“America has never been just about a group of people within a set of borders," Rev. Schuyler Vogel said. "It is an idea, at once, that human beings are worth something, that everyone deserves to live in freedom and not fear, that our diversity makes us better, happier, wiser and stronger."

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