WASHINGTON (ABP) — A broad variety of evangelicals and other Christian groups and leaders launched a new campaign May 7 to get Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
With a Washington press conference and ads in two major Capitol Hill publications, Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform launched a campaign that will include both a media strategy in states with large numbers of immigrants and a grassroots organizing campaign.
“The current U.S. immigration system is broken, and now is the time for a fair and compassionate solution,” said a letter signed by dozens of Christian leaders who support the new effort. “We think it is entirely possible to protect our borders while establishing a viable, humane and realistic immigration system, one that is consistent with our American values and increases national security while protecting the livelihood of Americans.”
The group did not endorse any particular immigration proposal but agreed on a set of principles — undergirded by Scripture references — that it says should guide immigration reform. They include:
— Acknowledgement that all people “are made in the 'image of God' and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,
— Affirmation of God's command to God's people “to love and show compassion for the stranger among us” and “to love our neighbors,” and
— “Respect for the rule of law but also an obligation to oppose unjust laws and systems that harm and oppress people made in God's image, especially the vulnerable.”
Progressive evangelical leaders and mainline Protestants have long advocated immigration reform that includes ways for illegal immigrants already working in the United States to earn citizenship. What's new is that conservative evangelical leaders have increasingly taken up the immigration-reform cause.
However, polls show that rank-and-file white evangelicals are more likely to take a hard line on immigration than the U.S. population as a whole. Many oppose any path to citizenship for undocumented workers, calling such plans “amnesty.”
For example, Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's public-affairs agency, recently was forced to clarify his comments on use of the term “amnesty” in a Capitol Hill press conference that advocated comprehensive immigration reform. Some conservatives accused him of supporting “amnesty” programs for illegal immigrants.
But Hispanic evangelicals' steady growth — in size and influence — within U.S. Christianity has helped to drive the concern to the forefront of evangelicalism.
Participants in Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform include several Hispanic evangelical groups and leaders, such as Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and Noel Castellanos of the Christian Community Development Association.
Among the other signatories to the effort are Joel Hunter — the suburban Orlando megachurch pastor who recently stepped down as head of the national Christian Coalition — and the American Baptist Churches USA.
Congress took up immigration-reform legislation last year, but it became bogged down by internal struggles in the then-Republican majority. The party was torn between anti-immigration hardliners and those, including President Bush, who wanted more comprehensive reform. The comprehensive reform would have included opportunities for undocumented workers in the United States to earn permanent status and start the process toward citizenship.
Several members in both chambers of Congress are working toward passing immigration reform this year.
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