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VVAW Member Helps Refugees, Victory In Sanctuary Trial

By VVAW

Jack Elder, Director of Casa Romero (a halfway house for Central American refugees), Vietnam vet, VVAW member, and leader of the sanctuary movement was sentenced to 5 months in a halfway house for aiding illegal immigrants. Elder had refused a judge's offer of probation if he would not speak on behalf of the sanctuary movement and if he would move out of Casa Romero. Elder's refusal to accept this sentence after having been found guilty, surprised the court which immediately imposed a one year prison sentence. After a day's consideration, however, the judge decided on the halfway house sentence, suggesting that the government did not want to provide the sanctuary movement with another martyr.

With his family Elder has lived and worked in the Casa Oscar Romero shelter for a number of years; the shelter has provided refuge, particularly for Salvadorians feeling political persecution in El Salvador. As Elder put it in an earlier statement, "As one of the growing number of Americans who are repulsed by the war we are waging in El Salvador, I am proud to be able to live my life in a way that allows my own alleged illegal actions to illuminate our nation's shameful policies."

An earlier trial had upheld the position of Elder and other members of the sanctuary community, that it was the U.S. government that was acting illegally by trying to send back refugees from El Salvador, and that U.S. law forbade the government from sending them to death for political reasons back home.

Stacey Merkt, a co-worker at Casa Oscar Romero was sentenced to 179 days in jail.

In San Antonio, Texas, the VVAW Chapter declared that its members would act to give sanctuary to refugees from Central American and provide shelter and transportation when requested.