It was more than six years ago that a small Unitarian church on the Upper West Side was at the center of a story getting national attention. All because they were housing an undocumented immigrant to prevent potential deportation.

Aura Hernandez and her children lived at the Fourth Universalist Society for close to a year. She has said she was fleeing domestic violence in Guatemala, but at the same time facing deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  

Rev. Schuyler Vogel is now the chaplain of Carleton College in Minnesota, but back in 2018 he was in charge at Fourth Universalist Society.

He said at first, the decision was to take Hernandez and her family in for a couple days. But quickly, he said, they realized she needed to stay much longer.

“Our congregation was faced with a pretty simple choice. There was a family in danger of being deported. Had they been deported, it was very possible Aura would have been killed when she returned and we were asked whether we would step in and prevent that,” he said.

Vogel told NY1 immigration lawyers the church had consulted with believed Hernandez had bad representation and should have had a chance at status given her story.

He was part of a group of religious leaders who made their houses of worship available to migrants facing deportation during the first term of the Trump administration.

One reason houses of worship were places undocumented immigrants sought refuge: a 2011 policy from the Obama administration making certain sensitive places, like churches, locations where ICE can’t conduct raids, except under very specific circumstances.

Vogel said for her protection, he never saw her leave the church her entire stay.

“We really tried hard to make it a place that someone would feel comfortable in,” he said.

On Monday, Donald Trump will be president again, and he is promising mass deportations.

And if Vogel were still in charge at the Upper West Side church, he said he would do things a little differently.

“Once we realized you couldn’t shame or pressure the administration around someone’s story like Aura, all you did was put a target on their back and that was not what we wanted to do at all,” he said.

Conversations are happening right now among houses of worship about who may take in migrants to shield them from potential deportation, said Murad Awawdeh, the CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition.

But he added that work is being done on a quieter front.

“I don’t think it’s about retaliation,” he said. “I think that people are just trying to be as safe as possible.”

Another factor could be whether these churches will be safe havens at all. It has been reported that President-elect Trump has been considering scrapping the 2011 Obama administration policy that largely protected churches from ICE raids.

“And that’s going to mean potentially enforcement at those locations,” said Amy Belsher, the director of immigrants’ rights at the New York Civil Liberties Union.

She said the federal government would still need a warrant to enter areas not open to the public.

“Churches can designate spaces that are private,” she said, adding that it would be covered by the Fourth Amendment.

An example of that could be the unused room where Hernandez lived with her children several years ago.

“I’ve rarely had a moment in my ministry that corresponded with a moment in history where I felt I was part of something that was truly profound,” said Vogel in an interview from Minnesota.

He said Hernandez’s time at the church changed more than just him, but his congregation, which ended up doubling its membership.

“There’s a path towards growth and vitality and dynamic powerful ministry and it comes with taking a little bit of risk, doing a little bit of work to put your values into action,” he said.

Even if, he said, the work is less in the public eye.