Monday, March 18, 2024 -
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For Araceli Velasquez, sanctuary means safety, but not happiness

PASSOVER 5779 SECTION A PAGE 8 house in which Araceli Velasquez and her family reside is a house of prayer. The attractive structure in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood is both a church and a synagogue, home to Park Hill United Methodist and Temple Micah. For more than a year-and-a-half, it has also been home to Velasquez, her husband Jorge and their three small sons — with another child on the way. But not by choice. This house of prayer is, for Velasquez — an illegal immigrant — a place of sanctuary, both a physical refuge and a quasi-protective status in the venerable tradition of churches serving as places safe from governmental law enforcement. Velasquez hopes that the law — in her case, federal immigration authorities […]
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