It's Time, Mr. President

It’s Time, Mr. President

Christian leaders unite to call for comprehensive immigration reform b y L inda E spens h ade

leaders of all ethnicities signed the letter.

“We are leaders serving a diverse spectrum of churches, but we are united in the belief that every human being is created in the image of God,” the letter read. “We take seriously the Gospel’s call to treat the foreigner with respect and compassion. Acting on this call means raising a public voice for immigration reform as a moral and spiritual issue.”

The cries of millions of people are in this letter, says Rev. Gabriel A. Salguero, director of the Latino Leadership Circle and part of the steering committee that drafted the letter.

Faith leaders from a wide variety of denominations and ethnicities have heard the cries “of the least of these,” Salguero says, and are compelled to advocate for them now.

“We cannot wait a minute longer,” says Lisa Sharon Harper, author of Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican ... or Democrat (New Press, 2008) and cofounder/executive director of NY Faith & Justice, an organization devoted to ending poverty. “Because every minute we wait, another family is broken up, another family is driven into poverty. Real people, real lives are affected every single day.”

Motivating the leaders is the firm belief that the Bible calls for Christians to free the oppressed and offer kindness to the alien/immigrant, the orphan and the widow. Salguero translates Jesus’ words of judgment in Matthew 25 into today’s context: “What we do to undocumented immigrants we also do to Jesus.”

The problem, several leaders say, is that the immigration system is broken (see “What Part of Legal Immigration Don’t You Understand?” on page 34). As it exists, the system keeps families apart for years, even those coming legally. Immigrants in detention have no rights to due process, and if they do find a way to appeal their case, they can be detained for years

From the mother who can no longer afford to feed her children because her husband has been deported, to the American citizen whose ready-to-deliver pregnant wife was sent back to Mexico because of a missed filing deadline; from the men sitting in US immigration detention centers with no rights to a lawyer, to the green-card holders forcibly taken from their homes at night by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — pastors in the Hispanic community hear stories that make them agonize for the lives torn apart by an immigration system they often describe as “broken.”

Under the leadership of Esperanza, one of the largest evangelical, faith-based Hispanic networks in the United States, many of those pastors and faith leaders have called upon President Barack Obama to take action on comprehensive immigration reform by Thanksgiving of this year. Rev. Luis Cortés Jr., president of Esperanza, presented the president with a letter summarizing the leaders’ concerns at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast, held on June 19. More than 150

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until the case is settled. Immigrants need jobs and employers need employees, but the two groups are not given a way to connect legally. People awaiting green cards cannot return home for funerals or other significant family events.

“Most Americans think there is a simple set of rules — you follow them or you don’t,” says Cortés. “But that’s not how it works.”

There are so many rules, regulations, and arbitrary applications of the rules, he says, that most American citizens would not tolerate them. The only other system that comes close to the immigration system in its level of complexity is the US tax code, he says.

“There are people, many, many people, who have tried to do the legal requirements and have gotten so messed over by the system, either by the ineptitude of the system or by the carelessness of the system, that it’s almost impossible to do the right thing when you’re trying,” says Rev. Dr. Joel C.

Rev. Luis Cortés Jr.

“Poverty is one of the surest and fastest ways to mangle the image of God in a human being,” Harper says.

In spite of the many reasons for comprehensive immigration reform, Cortes knows that proponents battle a variety of political forces — labor unions, conservative Republicans, and conservative Democrats who want to keep their congressional seats. Proponents also suffer from the silence of some evangelical leaders, who have influence over millions of evangelical Christians.

Missing from the list of evangelical leaders signing the letter are well-known names like Rick Warren, James Dobson, T.D. Jakes, Tony Perkins, and Kirbyjon Caldwell.

Even if they didn’t sign the letter, Cortés says, he hopes they will become more vocal about the need for comprehensive immigration reform and the role that Christians should play in that.

“I have not seen any public statement on immigration

Rev. Gabriel A. Salguero

Lisa Sharon Harper

Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed in Longwood, Fla. The implications of the broken system are monumental, faith leaders insist, both for American citizens and for immigrants.

For starters, Hunter says, the system pushes immigrants into the shadows, where they struggle to do what’s right.

“There’s less motivation to be a constructive member of society and more motivation to be very resentful about not being given a chance.” Add to those feelings a sense of economic desperation, and the desire to fight the system and its keepers for what they need may not be far behind.

Harper sees the impact of the broken immigration system in terms of poverty. Mothers or fathers who are left to care for multiple children when their spouse is detained or deported often become impoverished. They experience a level of desperation that can push them to make choices they wouldn’t otherwise make — choices that sacrifice their families and themselves.

Rev. Dr. Joel C. Hunter

reform from some of these more prominent brothers and sisters,” says Salguero. “Pastor Rick (Warren) — he pastors in California. It seems to me that the political and moral stand he mustered on AIDS and the environment should be the same one that he needs to speak about our brothers and sisters publicly. Same for Brother Dobson.”

A statement like that could be costly, Salguero admits, because their supporters may have different ideas about what it means to be Christian. However, he challenges all leaders to examine the Scriptures and speak up. “We’re called to model,” he says.

Salguero recognizes that some evangelical Christians oppose any leniency for illegal immigrants because of the biblical instruction to submit to the law and leaders of the land. “I think that kind of legal concern is a legitimate one.

I don’t dismiss that,” he says. To that end he believes restitutionary measures are necessary in the new law.

However, he says, judging immigrants for breaking the

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IT’S TIME, MR. PRESIDENT

driving the opposition to immigration reform.

Nevertheless, proponents of immigration reform are standing against that fear and the concern that Congress won’t act on the issue by urging Obama to fulfill his campaign promise to address immigration reform. In return, they promise to rally supporters from all denominations and faith groups, lobby political leaders, and speak out publicly wherever they can on the issue.

“We stand ready,” says Salguero, “from pulpits all over the country, from wherever our platform is to make our biblical case, our moral case. We stand ready to prick the moral conscience of the country.”

Hunter, who testified for immigration reform before the US Senate Committee of the Judiciary on April 30, says he believes action will be taken. He has much confidence in Sen. Charles Schumer, who presided over the hearing for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Refugees.

“He would not take this on if he didn’t think he could bring it to some sort of fruition.”

Harper sees momentum among the people for this issue, too. “People have wanted change, been calling for change.

They voted Obama in.The wind is on the side of immigration.

We cannot wait a minute longer.” n

law to come to America is not doing justice to the complexity of the problem. It’s quite possible they came here because their children would have died or been malnourished in their home country. Many immigrants come here only seeking what’s best for their family.

“The Gospel calls us to compassion while obeying the law,” Salguero says, “but if the law is broken we answer to a higher authority.”

As Christians, Hunter suggests, we need to focus on redemption. Certainly people who break the law need to pay a penalty, but people jump to conclusions when they think the penalty is to go back to their home countries, he says.

“Many of us in our own walk didn’t have to go back to square one when we did wrong. God redeemed us from where we were,” Hunter says.

Harper challenges Christians to examine their own fear that immigrants will threaten our “way of life” — a motivating factor that Christians have historically used to justify evils like slavery and apartheid.

“We really need to have a come-to-Jesus moment,” Harper says, “where we admit our fear, and we admit our fear of the loss of power and control to people we don’t know and we don’t trust, to a language we don’t understand. We need to repent, because that’s not faith.”

Fear is the opposite of faith, she says, and fear is what’s

Linda Espenshade is a freelance journalist based in Lancaster, Pa.

Excerpt from the letter to President Obama “ When our current approaches leave families afraid to send their children to school, go to the grocery store, talk to the police during an emergency, or even answer a knock at the door, regardless of the nature of their immigration status, we must speak up. A divided, polarized, and frightened community works in complete contrast to the message of Christ’s love and reconciliation we strive to communicate in our world. “ Congress’s failure to pass immigration reform in 2007 has only exacerbated the problem, confusing enforcement procedures at the state and local level and contributing to a climate where hateful rhetoric dominates the national dialogue. It was exactly this climate that drove so many Hispanic voters to the polls in November. Our community turned out to vote in record numbers, largely motivated by the negative rhetoric of the immigration debates in 2006 and 2007. We are looking for a solution. “ We were encouraged by your campaign promise to act on immigration reform in the first year of your administration and we commit to working with you to achieve this goal. We urge an end to raids that divide and terrorize families and support a comprehensive reform that would prioritize family unity so husbands, wives, parents and children won’t be forced to wait years to reunite with their loved ones.

We must effectively enforce our borders and restore the rule of law in this country, but we must also look with compassion upon the immigrants who are here.”

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