Bolingbrook Dad Takes Sanctuary in Chicago Church to Fight Deportation

Jose Juan Federico Moreno is a 34-year-old father of five. He’s lived in Bolingbrook for the past 16 years but now he’s living in a Chicago church.

Why? It’s one of the few places he has where U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement officers won’t arrest him.

Moreno is, for all intents and purposes, a fugitive. In 2009 he was convicted of aggravated driving under the influence, which brought about deportation proceedings, according to the Chicago Tribune. Since then, he’s been fighting the deportation, but was told he had until April 15 to self-deport to Mexico and leave behind his family.

His five children are U.S. born, according to CBS 2, but Moreno is an admitted illegal immigrant.

His children and his wife are what he’s fighting for.

"Right now what I'm focusing on is continuing to fight through sanctuary to try to stay with my family," Moreno told the Tribune through a translator.

When the day to self-deport came, Moreno went looking for help and found it at University Church in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

Pastor Julian DeShazier told Think Progress the church welcomed Moreno because his faith means responding to injustice and promoting families staying together.

“As a church we are proud to stand by Jose Juan and his family, and the dozen of other churches across the country who are opening their doors, responding to the call to action, to say NOT ONE MORE,” the pastor said in an email to Think Progress.

Since Moreno sought sanctuary in the church, his family has had limited contact with him. Berenice Alonzo, Moreno’s wife, told the Tribune that bringing her kids to visit disrupts their routine and school schedules.

"It's been very frustrating," she told the Tribune. "Even when he's still in Chicago, we don't have him at home."

Meanwhile, Moreno hopes that Immigration and Custom Enforcement officers reconsider deporting him. In Washington, President Obama’s efforts to give “temporary protection from deportation to more than 4 million undocumented immigrants ran into opposition from conservative justices on the Supreme Court,” according to USA Today.

So it’s a waiting game that Moreno has to play. One that could leave him in a small room in a church without his family for an indefinite amount of time.