As a group of homeless day laborers cluster around her in a dusty Lake Worth parking lot, Sister Rachel Sena takes names and numbers.
The Catholic nun doles out cash to men and women from such far-flung provinces as Huehuetenango, Guatemala, all recently evicted from overcrowded apartments for code violations. She tells them where they can find shelter and medical care. She does not ask for Green Cards.
If some members of Congress have their way, Sena's work would soon be a crime. A proposed federal law could make it illegal for individuals like her to help undocumented immigrants.
Sena and other church leaders say the measure exploits anti-immigrant fears that flared after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"It goes against what any Christian is taught," said Sena, who heads the Maya Ministry in Lake Worth, part of the Palm Beach Diocese. "These are extremists who want to implement a discriminatory practice in the name of being patriotic."
The legislation has passed the House and a version is making its way through the Senate. A compromise bill is likely, but the House measure has outraged religious leaders and put them at odds with conservative legislators in the immigration-reform battle.
The bill, introduced by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., would charge anyone who knowingly helps undocumented immigrants remain in the United States with "alien smuggling" and subject them to a prison term of up to five years.
The bill's language is broad enough to snare churches and humanitarian agencies that serve immigrant populations, opponents say.
At issue are the country's 12 million undocumented immigrants who traditionally benefit from religious charity but are also scrutinized in the government's efforts to secure borders and combat terror. Florida has an estimated 885,000 undocumented immigrants, the third largest number after California and Texas, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
But even if the bill becomes law, Florida clergy insist that they will continue to help all immigrants, no questions asked. They have joined religious leaders from around the country in urging parishioners to ignore the bill.
"Any intelligent person has to know that it's the moral obligation of churches to help those in need without asking for their faith, political party, or legal status," said the Rev. Jorge Bello of St. Katharine Drexel Catholic Church in Weston. " It's our duty as Christians. We're not doing it for sport."
Bello is the former priest of the Church of the Little Flower in Hollywood, where an immigration ministry provided legal counseling to many of his undocumented congregants.
Supporters of the proposed law argue that its provisions would make it harder for the nation's undocumented workers to take advantage of social services, such as church shelters and transportation, which encourage them to stay in the country. They say the penalties primarily target illegal immigrant smuggling rings and that the law would tighten border security and counter terrorism. Religious leaders widely have misinterpreted the bill, its advocates say.
Opposition to the legislation is widespread. It does not only come from Catholic clergy who have a long tradition of helping low-income immigrants. Evangelical Christian leaders who embraced the Republican Party's faith-based agenda in recent elections also oppose it and now find themselves protesting legislation that could alienate their growing Hispanic ministries.
"The government has gone too far," said the Rev. Jorge Alvarez of Taft Hispanic Baptist Church in Hollywood. "We're there to minister to people. We are not immigration. We will not become immigration. If we have to pay the consequences, then we'll pay them."
That note of defiance is resounding in congregations around the state.
"We've got to welcome the stranger. That's what our tradition tells us to do," said the Rev. Russell Meyer, interim executive director of the Tampa-based Florida Council of Churches. However, he said the council did not yet have an official position on the Sensenbrenner bill.
Meyer recently returned from Washington, D.C., where he joined a national group of clergy who conveyed their objections to congressional leaders.
"I don't see how it's really enforceable," said Meyer, whose group represents over a half-million churchgoers including Lutherans and Baptists. "I can't see the American public tolerating for very long a government that has open warfare on traditional churches."
The protests reached a crescendo recently in Los Angeles. Cardinal Roger Mahony, who leads the country's largest Catholic archdiocese, urged priests to defy the bill if it becomes law.
Supporters of the Sensenbrenner bill call the outcry of church leaders a smokescreen.
"The Sensenbrenner provisions do not change the current legal framework in which it is a criminal offense to aid and abet illegal immigration," said Jack Martin of the Washington D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports tighter immigration controls. Martin said the bill would not target church volunteers at soup kitchens, a specter raised by opponents.
Martin said religious leaders' protests reminded him of the 1980s Sanctuary Movement when some Catholic churches offered shelter to Central American immigrants fleeing civil strife. Federal officials arrested several Catholics, including priests, on immigrant-smuggling charges.
"What they appear to be agitating for now is a resumption of that kind of activity," Martin said.
The Archdiocese of Miami, which includes Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, has encouraged parishioners to speak out on immigration reform. Church officials are distributing information kits to all its parishes this month.
"We're coming from a perspective of faith, not from the perspective of politics," said Brian Stevens, social advocacy director for Catholic Charities in Miami. "We are not going to start asking people for their immigration status. It just won't happen."
It won't happen in Lake Worth. As evicted families gathered around Sena, Lisa Stewart, of the Palm Beach Friends Meeting, a Quaker group, dropped off cereal boxes and other food. Stewart said group members planned to house some of the workers until they found homes.
"I just don't see where giving shelter to people contributes to terrorism," she said. "What's next? Are we going to start requiring the fire department to check people's Green Cards before they can get help?"
THE POOR!
