Jewish woman hides Mexicans from immigration officers in California

Congregant says awareness of Holocaust inspired her to start safe house after hearing in her synagogue about family’s plight

Thousands of immigrants and supporters join the Defend DACA March to oppose the President Trump order to end DACA on September 10, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (David McNew/Getty Images/AFP)
Thousands of immigrants and supporters join the Defend DACA March to oppose the President Trump order to end DACA on September 10, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (David McNew/Getty Images/AFP)

A Jewish woman, a Baptist minister and a Catholic Latino family are running an illegal safe house in California for a Mexican woman without staying permits, CNN reported.

The safe house is an apartment started by the Jewish woman initiated after hearing about a Mexican family’s plight in her synagogue, according to CNN’s report Thursday.

The woman was not named to prevent authorities from going after her, the report said.

Residing in the apartment are a mother and her two teenage daughters but the Jewish woman is the one signed on the lease for the asset, which is located in a suburban California middle-class neighborhood.

She came to harbor the family after hearing about an interfaith network helping undocumented immigrants at her synagogue. A fellow congregant approached her about “a service opportunity.”

The network, LA Voice headed by Rev. Zachary Hoover, began after the election of US President Donald Trump, who has ordered stricter enforcement action on undocumented immigrants. The father of the family staying in the Jewish woman’s apartment was deported in 2017. His relatives told CNN he voluntarily came to immigration authorities in a bid to regulate his status but was sent back. His daughters were born in the United States. But their mother is an illegal alien.

The Jewish woman who signed the lease for the safe house wears a gold Star of David pendant and earrings inscribed in Hebrew. One reads, “I am nothing but ashes.” The other says, “The whole world was made for me.”

“The earrings remind me to take up the right amount of space in this world,” the woman told CNN. “Not too much, but not too little.”

For the woman, the link from the present to the history of World War II is strong, she told CNN.

“I grew up in the time where the Holocaust was not so far behind me,” says the woman. “There was always that awareness, as a Jew, that it’s possible to be kicked out of a country where people thought they were home. And many of those people didn’t make it.”

In a statement, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said, “Knowingly harboring an alien is a federal crime.”

ICE spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez continued: “ICE does not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement. All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States.”

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