Finding sanctuary on Wash. Sq. South

Jean Montrevil is a 39-year-old Brooklyn man who knows that everyday spent in America could be his last.

Montrevil is one of the hundreds of thousands illegal immigrants in the United States facing deportation. In 2007 alone, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported more than 280,000 people, and more cases are pending every day. However, Montrevil is lucky to have something other immigrants don't: He has a whole church on his side.

On May 9, 2007, the Judson Memorial Church, located on the southside of Washington Square Park, voted unanimously to offer Montrevil sanctuary. The church is part of the New Sanctuary Movement, a growing number of congregations dedicated to immigrants' rights. Even though the church does not offer Montrevil physical protection, they offer other essential help.

"They give you a voice, an advocate's voice," he said. "They're there to support you - spiritually, legally and financially."

And Montrevil has certainly needed the assistance.

Montrevil was born in Aux Cayes, Haiti, in 1968. He and his siblings dreamt of coming to the States, and on March 6, 1986, they finally did.

"We'd been waiting for so long while we were in Haiti," he said. "It was the best day of my life. It was freedom."

But his dream soon turned into a nightmare. Montrevil said that after clashes with his father, he ran away from his new home and into the world of cocaine.

On a drug-running trip to Virginia in April of 1989, Montrevil was pulled over by police. The cops searched the car and discovered cocaine. He was arrested for possession with intent to distribute and conspiracy to distribute.

For the crime, Montrevil served 11 years in prison.

He said that while in prison, his immigration problems began. On the basis of a 1990 law that called for the deportation of immigrants convicted of drug crimes regardless of immigration status, deportation proceedings against him began in 1992. As such, Montrevil was liable for deportation, despite the fact that he was a legal, green card-holding resident. He fully expected to be deported once he was released from prison.

"I thought I would walk out of the prison. They'd be waiting for me. They'd take me, and I would go back to Haiti," he said.

Haiti has a record of severe mistreatment of returning deportees. According to a description from Auguste v. Ridge, a precedent-setting case involving a Haitian deportee, starvation, over-crowding and torture using electric shocks, burning and choking are common occurrences in Haitian prisons used for "runaways" returning to the island.

On April 11, 2000, Montrevil was released from prison on parole, but immigration services never approached him. It seemed as if he had been given a second chance at living an honest life, and he took it. His record since then has been clean; he received his GED and began a family with Jani, a substitute teacher from Brooklyn.

But when he showed up at a probation meeting in early 2005, a posse of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were waiting for him.

" 'Get down! Get down!,' they shouted," Montrevil said. " 'Hands in the air! Get down!' " he recalled.

He was arrested and spent the next seven months in custody. He was released in August of 2005.

Montrevil and his family, including four children, couldn't understand why, after seemingly forgetting about him for five years, the government decided to deport him then.

"We built a life. Now, they want to take it away from me and my children," Montrevil said.

Despite his obvious shock, his situation is not uncommon. According to professor Carola Suárez-Orozco, co-founder of the NYU Department of Immigration Studies, it's happening all the time.

"It's actually becoming increasingly common," she said. "Even though they [immigrants] may have spouses and children who are documented citizens, the immigration authorities are being authorized to deport them. They're cracking down in big ways, even on people who have been here for long times."

After Montrevil was released in August, Jani went online and discovered Families for Freedom, a group founded in 2002 that offers legal support to immigrants facing deportation. With the organization's help, Montrevil filed appeals against his deportation order over the following two years but to no avail.

In the winter of 2006, Montrevil's final appeal was rejected. It was then that Families for Freedom's director told him about the New Sanctuary Movement and later, Judson Memorial Church.

"What they've done has really supported me," Montrevil said.

Judson is happy to help Montrevil and his family.

"He is inspiring," said Donna Schaper, the senior minister at Judson. "The idea that he would be deported sickens me - as his friend, his pastor and his fellow citizen. If a third of Americans made the contribution to our society that he makes, monetarily and spiritually, we'd be in much better shape."

Montrevil credits the efforts of Judson and other churches in the movement with raising important immigration issues. Through their advocacy efforts, they were able to get Manhattan Congressman Jerrold Nadler and members of the city council to write letters to immigration about his case. The whole congregation at Judson wrote letters on his behalf as well. Members of the congregation accompany him to his monthly immigration check-ins and have collected signatures on a petition to immigration officials.

Despite all this, Montrevil's situation remains as tenuous as ever. Legally, he has exhausted all his options. He now wears a tracking bracelet on his ankle. Though he currently has a last-ditch appeal against his deportation, the fact that a final order for his deportation has been issued means that he could be seized and deported at any moment.

"I'm already done," he explains. "Immigration doesn't have to wait for the court to rule to deport me because I already have a final order."

Responding to potential criticisms that his deportation is simply the punishment he must receive for committing the crime he did, Montrevil is quick to point out who he believes the real victims are here.

"You have millions of children, millions of loved ones, who are paying the price," he said.

Joseph Yerardi is a contributing writer. E-mail him at citystate@nyunews.com.