A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
When the Trump administration suspended migrants' ability to claim asylum in the U.S., it left those already in the country awaiting court hearings in limbo. Dozens of houses of worship in Southern California are sheltering asylum seekers in that situation. NPR religion correspondent Jason DeRose spent time with some of those congregations.
JASON DEROSE, BYLINE: The education building is quiet but full at Grace Lutheran Church in the city of Bell.
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MARIA ELENA CRUZ DE MONTALVO: You broke it (ph)?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: No.
DEROSE: Pastor Maria Elena Cruz de Montalvo gives a tour of former Sunday school classrooms. She's pointing to ones where her church is sheltering migrants from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and elsewhere in Latin America.
MONTALVO: In this room is a father and one son.
DEROSE: So all told, how many do you have living here?
MONTALVO: Forty-five.
DEROSE: Including a group of 20 Muslims from North Africa.
MONTALVO: (Speaking Spanish).
DEROSE: Mauritanians, according to Montalvo, who say they fled slavery in their home country. They made their way to the southern U.S. border more than a year ago and claimed asylum. NPR agreed to use only the first name of one of them - Baba - because he fears speaking publicly could bring the ire of immigration officials.
BABA: Mauritania is not good because it have more racism. No have the life and everything. No good under Mauritania.
DEROSE: No life in his home country, Baba says, because of racism in the form of enslavement of Black Mauritanians by Arab Berbers.
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DEROSE: Here at Grace Lutheran, Baba sleeps on a cushion in one of the larger classrooms - all his life held in plastic bags. While Baba's asylum status is unclear - his court hearing is more than a year away - Pastor Montalvo wants him to be certain of God's love.
MONTALVO: (Speaking Spanish).
DEROSE: She says the church teaches her to love and walk with those in need, regardless of their religion, as Jesus did, so that no one walks alone. Montalvo emigrated to the U.S. from Mexico decades ago and knows how hard this journey is. She takes both her solace and her direction from a passage in the Gospel of John.
MONTALVO: (Speaking Spanish).
DEROSE: "God so loved the world," Montalvo recites, "that he gave his only son." She wants her church to embody a mercy similar to God's because these migrants have no other place to go.
GUILLERMO TORRES: After the election, the landscape has changed for us.
DEROSE: Guillermo Torres oversees immigration programs for the group CLUE - Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. CLUE, along with the ACLU and other groups, helped negotiate the release of the Mauritanians from a government detention center and asked Grace Lutheran to take them in.
TORRES: So there's a lot of discernment how us as faith communities are going to be in solidarity with a very vulnerable community at this moment.
DEROSE: CLUE has more than 30 congregations in Southern California currently housing migrants with varying levels of legal status.
TORRES: The greatest commandment after loving God with all your heart, soul and mind is to love your neighbor as yourself. Our immigration work, it's like, I'm not going to betray God, and I'm not going to betray that commandment. And I'm not going to turn my back on God, and I'm not going to turn my back on an immigrant.
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DEROSE: In south Los Angeles at Heritage United Methodist Church, Reverend Ivan Sevillano is showing off the progress volunteer construction workers and plumbers are making in the basement.
IVAN SEVILLANO: And they're working with these restrooms. They're trying to fix it and have a shower - put a shower.
DEROSE: The goal is a more hospitable refuge.
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SEVILLANO: Hello. (Speaking Spanish).
DEROSE: In a former meeting room, Sevillano introduces me to Geraldine. She and her two young children sleep on cots hidden behind office cubicle dividers. The family arrived here from Venezuela three months ago. NPR agreed to use just her first name because she fears what the Venezuelan government might do to family members still there.
GERALDINE: (Speaking Spanish).
DEROSE: Geraldine says what this church offers her is very important because she and her kids are in this country alone with no place to call home. They'd been living on the streets of LA before Heritage Methodist took them in.
SEVILLANO: In a biblical way, it's a demand that is presented on the Old Testament to welcome the strangers.
DEROSE: Pastor Sevillano says this is a lesson he learned growing up in Peru and coming to the U.S. years ago. He has a work visa, but he's not a citizen, so he knows this work is risky. But it's a risk he's willing to take because it's a risk that God takes.
SEVILLANO: God is here with people - walk with people. God is a God that suffers with them. It's a God that is in solidarity with them.
DEROSE: Because of God's solidarity with migrants, he says, God's church must be in solidarity with migrants as well.
Jason DeRose, NPR News, Los Angeles.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLOGS' "THREE-TWO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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