What happens when a criminal who seeks and receives sanctuary in a church in order to escape prosecution eventually leaves the church?

Good-bye, sanctuary.

Hello, real world.

The soap opera of a woman named Elvira who repeatedly snuck into our country in order to take a job and defy immigration laws is like an episode right out of “The Twilight Zone.” Somehow, she managed to find herself at the doorstep of some Methodist Church in Chicago.

It was like Dorothy finally getting to meet the Wizard in the Land of Oz.

In this case, the Wizard is a minister who loves to espouse a bunch of pro-illegal rhetoric whenever he’s asked the time of day. I’m not kidding, interviewing this guy on the radio is an exercise in futility. I’d ask him a question about when his little tenant plans to depart her holy digs and he’d ramble on about how illegals only work the jobs that Americans refuse to work, how hard illegals work, blah, blah, blah.

In other words, Elvira was the perfect vehicle for a Methodist minister who was just aching to make his mark in the pro-illegal movement.

So after a year of Elvira holed up on the second floor of this church along with her 8 year-old son, it appears the time has come for Elvira to make her move. According to the minister/publicist, she will leave the church sometime in September so she can make a pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. and tug at America’s heartstrings by trying to get arrested in our nation’s capital.

This is where the Twilight Zone part comes into play. Somehow I just know she’ll manage to travel the 702 miles from Chicago to D.C. to stage her media event. And that doesn’t make a lick of sense, other than knowing that forces will probably converge to prop up yet another poster-child for unlawful behavior.

There is not one single, solitary explanation for failing to put this woman in handcuffs and taking her to jail the minute she steps out of that church.

Not one.

She’s enjoyed a year of “sanctuary” because she found some misguided church pastor who decided to claim his fifteen minutes of fame by harboring a fugitive. When she leaves the church, the sanctuary is gone. Over. Done. Off she should go to lock-up.

But that’s probably not the way this will play out, is it? Heck, in a perfect world, the pastor would be taken off to jail with her. If you or I gave aid and comfort to a fugitive from justice, the police wouldn’t think twice about arresting us. Continued...