He fled a war and found sanctuary in Durham. After 3 years, he’s going home Friday.
After living in sanctuary in Durham for three years and seven months, José Chicas began packing up Thursday to go home.
“I’m trusting in God primarily, and then in the man who signed the order to cancel deportations,” the evangelical pastor from El Salvador said in Spanish from the front porch of the School for Conversion, an interfaith community-building and educating effort in a small, pale yellow house on Onslow Street.
Chicas, 55, who has four children, plans to return to his home in Raleigh on Friday, when President Joe Biden’s administration begins a 100-day moratorium on most deportations.
He told The News & Observer that his whole family is rejoicing. His wife Sandra and his 14-year-old son Ezequiel — who was in elementary school when his father had to leave — will feel his return the most.
“The new president arrived and with the stroke of a pen, Trump’s orders were ordered gone,” Chicas said. “And now, thank God, we’re going to have a little bit of relief, millions of us.”
School officials plan to gather Friday afternoon to celebrate his safe departure.
The first thing Chicas plans to do is “to give glory to God,” he said. And he can’t wait to visit his Raleigh church where he is a pastor, he said.
In some ways, though, he will miss the small house that sheltered him.
“Because of this place, I’ve met hundreds of people who have supported me,” Chicas said, noting how people from around the country visited, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and the Rev. William J. Barber II.
Fled civil war in El Salvador
Chicas left his native El Salvador in the 1980s to escape the country’s civil war. He applied for asylum in the United States in 1985 but was denied in 2008. He appealed in 2009 and lost, The News & Observer reported.
Since 2010, Chicas had shown up every year at ICE’s field office in Charlotte and received deportation delays and a work permit. At his 2017 appointment, ICE gave him a final order to leave by June 28.
That month Chicas moved into the Durham school, part of a small faith-based refuge movement in North Carolina and across the nation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a policy of not entering locations like houses of worship, schools and hospitals, The N&O reported.
Chicas’ move on Friday comes after his wife spoke with his attorney, who reviewed the Biden administration changes and advised his family Thursday that it would be safe for him to leave.
Three remain in sanctuaries
Chicas is one of three people in the state who remain in such sanctuaries, said Kelly Morales of Siembra NC, an organization that advocates for Latinx people.
Initially, at least seven across the state sought refuge in religious buildings.
Samuel Oliver-Bruno, who lived in a the basement of CityWell United Methodist Church in Durham for 11 months, was arrested and deported in November 2018 after he left the facility to keep an appointment with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, The N&O reported.
Juana Tobar Ortega, of Asheboro, has been living at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Greensboro since June 2017. Church officials didn’t respond to questions Thursday about her current status.
Eliseo Jimenez was deported to Mexico in 2007 because he was in the country illegally, but returned a month later because he had two young children in the country at the time, he told The N&O in 2017.
Jimenez, whose family lived in Greensboro, remains at Umstead Park United Church of Christ in Raleigh, where he has been since October 2017.
The Rev. Doug Long, a senior minister at the Raleigh church, wrote in an email that Jimenez will talk with his attorney Friday afternoon.
“We are all waiting to hear what she has to say now that a new administration is in place,” Long wrote.
In 2013, Jimenez was stopped and charged with driving without a license, he told The N&O in 2017. He was served with an order of removal, requiring him to leave the country. He later was granted a stay on the order, which he applied for again each year and was granted until 2017, he said.
Packing for home
In an interview in June, Chicas said if Trump was re-elected, he would likely move or be forced to move back to El Salvador.
“I just can’t stay here another four years,” he told The N&O in June.
As the country waited for the presidential election results, Chicas prayed as Trump and Biden traded the lead.
When Biden was sworn in Wednesday, Chicas cried, he said.
“I said ‘Oh, thank you God,’” and asked him to bless the president, Chicas said, as he held his hands to his heart.
On Thursday, Chicas walked around the small school, taking in the pending move and starting to pack but often getting distracted, he said.
“I can’t wait for tomorrow,” he said. “I cannot pack nothing. I have to have my son and everybody come and put it in my truck and take it home.”
His son Ezequiel Chicas said he is looking forward to taking a family vacation soon and shorter outings before then, he said.
“Just experiences like go to a park, go downtown, just experience freedom that he hasn’t seen in a while,” Ezequiel said.
This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 3:04 PM.
