GREENSBORO â The morning after, Minerva Cisneros Garcia went to Kohls.
âI looked around and walked around smiling like crazy,â Garcia said of browsing the aisles of her favorite store that day in 2019. âI remember a few people looking at me like, âAre you OK?â â
The Winston-Salem mother of three had 24 hours earlier stood before a federal immigration judge in Charlotte in what is considered one of the toughest courtrooms in the country for appealing deportation orders.
Garcia, who is originally from Mexico, had taken sanctuary in a church to avoid being deported. She followed in the steps of Juana Luz Tobar Ortega, the Asheboro seamstress originally from Guatemala who in 2017 became the first person in North Carolina to seek sanctuary from U.S. immigration officials at a church.
Juana Tobar Ortega, who has been living at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Greensboro since May 2017 to avoid being deported, has returned to her home in Asheboro, Siembra NC,
She spent 4 years in a Greensboro church, seeking sanctuary Now this Asheboro mother is home hickoryrecord.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hickoryrecord.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Biden deportation moratorium blocked. What does it mean for NC immigrants in sanctuary? Aaron Sánchez-Guerra and Virginia Bridges, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Feb. 5 When President Joe Biden put a 100-day hold on most deportations after taking office last month, Juana Luz Tobar Ortega and Eliseo Jiménez, unauthorized immigrants in sanctuary in North Carolina, got their hopes up.
But a federal judge swiftly blocked the moratorium just days after it was issued, first for 14 days then until Feb. 23.
Now, both immigrants don t know when they might safely leave the churches where they have been living to avoid deportation orders the past three years.