Truth Dismissed

So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. --Isaiah 59:14-15

There is perhaps no better argument for the timeless relevancy of scripture than the Tucson courtroom of U.S. District Judge Earl H. Carroll, where 11 sanctuary workers are on trial because they have provided sanctuary to innocent people fleeing the U.S.-financed violence in Central America.

Throughout the now 18-week-long trial, truth has been absent in what is said as well as in what cannot be said. The defendants include two Catholic priests, a Presbyterian minister, and a Catholic nun, yet Judge Carroll will not allow them to explain the religious motivation for their sanctuary work. International law stipulates conditions for political asylum, but Carroll will hear no international law in his Arizona courtroom.

Refugees aided by the sanctuary workers have fled their homelands in fear for their lives, but the jury does not hear their heartrending accounts of torture, imprisonment, rape, and murder. Several refugee witnesses had sneaked into the United States and gone into hiding because United Nations refugee workers in Mexico told them the United States accepts only 2 percent to 3 percent of Salvadoran and Guatemalan asylum applications. But Carroll will not allow such explanations, saying, "We're not going to have all these statistics presented to the jury." All this information and more Carroll has deemed "irrelevant to the government's case."

While Carroll refuses to allow the sanctuary defense to tell the truth, he continues to hear a government case based on infiltration, lies, threats, deceit, and nondisclosure of evidence. The government's star witness, paid informant Jesus Cruz, has perjured himself at least three times during the trial. And James Rayburn, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service's chief investigator in the case, sat silently in the courtroom while Cruz said things Rayburn knew to be false. Yet when the defense attorneys asked Carroll to disqualify Cruz as a witness, to strike his testimony from the record, or even to declare a mistrial because of Cruz's perjurious testimony, Carroll refused, taking no action against the prosecution other than a verbal reprimand of Rayburn.

It gets worse. Refugees are abused by Carroll and government prosecutor Donald M. Reno when they testify on the stand, reliving horrible experiences in an intimidating room full of persons speaking a language they cannot understand. Carroll, who speaks no Spanish, sustained one of Reno's objections before a translator interpreted the refugee witness' statement from Spanish to English. When defense attorneys protested, Carroll said the refugee's answer was "too long." This is the same supposedly impartial judge who astounded defense attorneys and defendants, two of whom are Mexican nationals, when he said, "I think people from Latin America perhaps have a difficulty in just answering the question 'yes' or 'no' by nature of their personal attitudes; maybe they don't."

The 11 sanctuary defendants are charged with a total of 67 felony counts of conspiracy to smuggle, transport, and conceal "illegal aliens," and each count carries a possible five-year prison term. The defense attorneys, members of more than 270 sanctuary churches and synagogues, and the thousands of sanctuary movement supporters across the country are amazed at the outrageous miscarriage of justice being perpetrated by the government and Judge Carroll. It is hard for us to imagine how justice for the defendants can ever be done in such a truthless vacuum. Yet the defendants themselves, who have much more cause than we do to be fearful and furious, remain steadfast.

BECAUSE OF THEIR astute understanding of the nature of truth and of the nature of powers and principalities, the defendants have not been surprised by the course of events. They were not surprised by the indictments; they expected them to come even as they took refugees into their homes and hearts. They had counted the cost of telling and living the gospel truth.

They have understood that the truth is a two-edged sword, both liberating and dangerous. To the powerless, such as oppressed Central Americans, Jesus says, "The truth will set you free." But they also knew that the same truth of God's justice and liberation threatens the powerful, the keepers of the status quo; the shapers of U.S. policy in Central America. They knew they would be prosecuted and persecuted not because they helped Central American refugees enter the country--for their impact on the refugee flow has been extremely small--but because their movement has challenged the government with a powerful truth.

In violating U.S. law by helping refugees enter the country and harboring them, the sanctuary workers proclaimed the truth that obeying the gospel will often put us in direct conflict with the powers of our time. And when the refugees stood up in churches to tell of the violent, repressive conditions in El Salvador and Guatemala, the American public began to see the truth about those conditions, as well as the lies about U.S. policy.

So the government has taken action, just as the defendants knew it would, to squash the dangerous truth by crushing the sanctuary movement. It began by sending paid informants, armed with bugging equipment and tape recorders, into Bible studies and sanctuary meetings. The government's desperate strategy, with its subversive and deceitful tactics, continues with -the sanctuary trial, where truth is barred and deceit is embraced.

John Fife, Jim Corbett, Phil Willis-Conger, Peggy Hutchison, Darlene Nicgorski, Ramon Dagoberto Quinones, Mark K. Doan Espinoza, Tony Clark, Nena McDonald, Wendy LeWin, and Maria de Socorro Pardo de Aguilar don't know what will happen when the case finally goes to the jury. But they know that the truth cannot be overcome with lies. They know that the truth cannot be overcome, period. They know that the sanctuary movement has grown tremendously since the indictments, and that it will continue to grow after the verdict--whatever it is. They know something that Judge Carroll does not: While truth may be kept out of the courtroom, it cannot be kept from the hearts of God's people. And once it is there, it cannot be stopped.

Vicki Kemper was new editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.