Originally published by LA Times
Rest easy, fellow Chicagoans. We no longer have to live in fear of Betty Rendón Madrid.
Thanks to the heroic work of agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Rendón Madrid has been deported from Chicago to her native Colombia. She sought asylum in the United States in 2006, was denied asylum in 2008 and then, as the years went on, became the one thing Americans fear most: a Lutheran student pastor with no criminal record.
That’s right. In the late 2000s, after losing their asylum case, Rendón Madrid and her family remained in the country and moved here so she could study at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. It’s the exact scenario immigration hard-liners like myself have been warning people about for decades: violence-fleeing foreigners staying in this country illegally so they can steal jobs from hardworking American Lutheran student pastors.
Rendón Madrid’s nefarious plot came crashing down earlier this month when her 26-year-old daughter, Paula Hincapie Rendón, was pulled over by immigration officials while driving her 5-year-old daughter to school.
“Hincapie Rendón said that while she was handcuffed and placed inside another vehicle, ICE agents drove her car — with her daughter still inside — to her parents’ South Side home. She recalled hearing her daughter crying during the ordeal.”
(As has been demonstrated repeatedly during the Trump administration, terrifying children is a one of the primary ways ICE agents keep America safe.)
The agents wound up arresting Rendón Madrid and her 60-year-old husband, Carlos Hincapie Giraldo. Their daughter was released after a few hours. Since she was brought into the country as a child, she’s protected from deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and could only be traumatized for half of one day.
On Tuesday morning, Hincapie Rendón’s parents were on a plane back to Colombia, the country they fled because her mother was getting threats from guerrilla fighters while she was teaching at a school. (That’s probably the same sob story all foreign infiltrators who lead crime-free lives, own homes and raise families while becoming Lutheran student pastors use. Pathetic.)
I can’t imagine the relief being felt right now in the Lutheran student pastor community. Rendón Madrid was obviously a clear and present danger, as she had spent the past two months selfishly commuting two hours to Racine, Wis., to serve as the temporary pastor at Emaus Lutheran Church.
The Rev. Paul Erickson, bishop for the church’s Greater Milwaukee Synod, told the Tribune that Rendón Madrid’s immigration status kept her from being ordained: “She was never ordained in our tradition, but she has been working doing various things in the church.”
Various things? One can only imagine what nefarious things she was up to, as long as you assume everyone in the country illegally is inherently bad and you don’t listen to the Rev. Ruben Duran of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who said Rendón Madrid is a gifted preacher well liked by the congregation.
“We are hurt, we are bothered and we are angry,” Duran said. “We won’t let it paralyze us. On the contrary, we want to function as a driving force that is working to ask for justice and liberty for her.”
Apparently Rendón Madrid and her cabal of people who have built good, productive lives and become part of the fabric of America somehow managed to brainwash Duran.
The family’s attorney, Diana Rashid of the National Immigrant Justice Center, had filed an application asking ICE to let the couple remain in Chicago.
“We think that this case is very different and it warrants different treatment,” Rashid said. “Betty and Carlos have no criminal record whatsoever, and the fact that Betty is a pastor in the Lutheran community and has these deep ties. They are also homeowners. … We think that distinguishes their case.”
Nice try, lawyer making a perfectly reasonable argument grounded in America’s now-lost sense of decency and compassion. But if the federal government doesn’t spend money deporting people like Rendón Madrid and her husband, how can Lutherans in this country ever feel confident that the person preaching to them isn’t a law-breaking foreigner hellbent on delivering a thoughtful sermon?
And what else would the government do with the money that keeps ICE agents sniffing out threatening characters like Rendón Madrid? Use it to help a city like Chicago find ways to reduce gun violence in the wake of a Memorial Day weekend that left more than 40 people shot? What a waste that would be.
No, we need to be thankful America’s immigration officials are scouring the countryside looking for middle-age student pastors, Lutheran or otherwise.
Surely God would agree.
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