How A Group Of Mauritanian Asylum Seekers Found A Home At A Latino Church In Bell

One recent Sunday at the Grace Lutheran Church in Bell, during a Spanish-language service, pastor Maria Elena Montalvo said a prayer from the pulpit.

“For my brothers from Mauritania,” Montalvo started, “I thank you for the liberty that you’ve given them in this place.”

Grace Lutheran Church of Bell members during a Sunday morning service on March 10, 2024.

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Julie Leopo

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The Mauritanians she referred to arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last summer, along with many others from the northwest African nation. They formed part of a growing number of asylum seekers from Mauritania, where citizens face human rights abuses and slavery, while not legal, is still practiced.

More than a hundred Mauritanians wound up at the Adelanto detention center last summer, without interpreters or money to pay the steep bonds set for them.

Immigrant advocates and church groups worked with the local American Civil Liberties Union to have them released. Once that happened, they went to different sponsors and shelters; many went out of state. But one large group of men had nowhere to go — so Montalvo’s church, which for years has sheltered new immigrants, took them in.

A long journey

After the church service, Montalvo headed downstairs to a basement community room that’s been repurposed as a dorm: futon-style beds lined the walls, with Muslim prayer rugs laid out in the middle.

Some of the men gathered in the kitchen preparing lunch. They spoke in Pulaar, which is spoken in northwest Africa.

Ibrahim and Oumar Ba, two brothers who are among the few English speakers, described their reasons for leaving home.

“In Mauritania, we have a big problem with the government,” said Oumar, the older of the two, describing police brutality and repression against Black Mauritanians.

Violent protests broke out last year after the death of a young Black man in police custody. Oumar, who attended the protests, said he was arrested and jailed for three days; the next time he encountered police, he said he was threatened with arrest again.

After that, “I said I have to go, because maybe if I don’t go, I will have a problem.”

Joined by his brother Ibrahim and a friend, they flew to Istanbul, then went on to Colombia, then El Salvador before arriving in Nicaragua, a country that has become a popular entryway for U.S.-bound immigrants due to relaxed visa requirements.

From left, brothers Ibrahim Ba and Oumar Ba seek asylum in the U.S. after Oumar spent three days imprisoned after being detained at a demonstration.

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After crossing into the U.S. and requesting asylum, they eventually were sent to the immigrant detention center in Adelanto, where Ibrahim Ba said they spent two months, unable to pay a $5,000 bond set for each of them.

“I don’t have money to pay my bond,” Ibrahim Ba said, “I don’t have my family.”

‘We understand them’

But they eventually found another family of sorts in Bell.

After immigrant advocates and the ACLU intervened, bonds for the brothers and several others were lowered and in some cases dismissed, said Guillermo Torres, immigration program director with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, or CLUE, one of the groups that advocated for the group’s release.

Of the group that remained in Southern California, some initially went to a church in Bakersfield and another shelter, “then eventually, we transitioned most of them to the church in Bell,” Torres said.

For pastor Montalvo, whose church has served as a “sanctuary” church for new immigrants for several years, this was her biggest group yet — but she wanted to help.

Pastor Maria Elena Montalvo leads church members in a hymn on Sunday, March 10, 2024.

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Julie Leopo

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“What motivates me is to be able to give back a little of what this country has given me,” said Montalvo, who arrived 32 years ago with her husband from Mexico City. “I don’t want for them to endure what I did, to be alone, without friends, without anyone who can help you.”

The church has been working with African immigrant advocates to procure resources and contacts for the Mauritanians. They were connected with a local mosque in Bell that’s not far from the church, which has also helped.

The congregation, many of them from Mexico and Central America, has also helped out. After the recent Sunday service, Maria Dominguez stopped by downstairs to say hello. Along with others, she’s cooked and donated food to the group.

Baba Ba, 34, sits on his mat in the basement of the Grace Lutheran Church of Bell on March 10, 2024. Ba is seeking asylum in the US.

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“Mostly because we went through the same thing,” said Dominguez, an immigrant from Mexico. “We understand them.”

A common language

The church is presently housing about two dozen other immigrants from Latin America. Along with the Mauritanians, most are in different stages of seeking asylum and work permits as they hope to learn English, find jobs and move out of the church. In the meantime, they’re learning from one another.

Prayer mats are lined up in the middle of the basement of the Grace Lutheran Church of Bell on March 10, 2024.

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Outside the church, Samba Sow and Daniel Zacarias Reyes shared a bench and a set of earbuds as Sow chatted with relatives in Mauritania on a video call, introducing them to Zacarias, an asylum seeker from Guatemala.

Zacarias had been staying at the church for two weeks; he said he and his partner fled Guatemala to escape anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

Here in Bell, Zacarias has also joined the church community: He attends English classes at the local high school with several other immigrants, including Sow and many of the Mauritanians.

From left, Samba Sow, 25, a Mauritanian asylum seeker, and Daniel Zacarias Reyes, 23, a Guatemalan immigrant, video call Sow's family on March 10, 2024.

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Julie Leopo

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“We help one another,” Zacarias said in Spanish. Not only with learning English, but “he teaches me some words from Africa, I teach him some words from Guatemala.”

A similar exchange was taking place downstairs in the basement as Montalvo and Oumar Ba compared notes about fasting for Ramadan — which was about to begin the following day — and Lent, which began in February.

They spoke in a mix of English and Spanish, which some of the men have picked up since they got to Bell.

Montalvo said she and others at the church have taken to using Google translate to communicate with those who speak a little bit of Arabic and French, and relying on the few English speakers as interpreters.

Mohamed Cheddad serves rice and chicken that he cooked in the basement of the Grace Lutheran Church of Bell on March 10, 2024.

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Julie Leopo

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LAist

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But even without a common language, she said, fellow immigrants just kind of get one another.

“You understand,” Montalvo said in Spanish, “like there is a kind of interaction from heart to heart.”

Pretty soon it was time for lunch. Mohamed Cheddad, who had volunteered for cooking duties, served up heaping plates of Mauritanian-style chicken and rice.

“Arroz?” he began, in Spanish. “Chicken, poquito?”

Because home, at least for now, is in Southeast L.A.