Thread: Jewish groups weigh in on immigration

http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/mai ... TM=240.488

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Passion and policy
Jewish groups weigh in on immigration

by Paula Amann
News Editor

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

As faith groups bring fresh passion to the national debate over immigration reform, Jewish groups are playing a major role.

This fervor flared at a conference and advocacy day, "Faith and Migration: Diverse Perspectives from Religious Leaders," held in Washington on Wednesday of last week.

The event, organized by 17 faith groups, drew close to 150 people. The American Jewish Committee and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society co-sponsored the conference and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs also took part.

The strong Jewish presence at the conference reflects a "remarkable level of enthusiasm" for immigration reform at the Jewish grassroots, Mark Hetfield, HIAS senior vice president for policy and programs, said in a later interview.

"I've been working with the Jewish community since 1989, and I haven't seen anything like this since Soviet Jewry ‹ with the exception of Darfur," said Hetfield, who attended last week's gathering.

At a panel discussion on "The Theology of Migration," JCPA executive director Rabbi Steve Gutow drew parallels between Jewish immigrants of the past and the largely Hispanic migrants to the United States today.

"How we treat the 12 million undocumented who are here in many ways colors who we are as Jews," said Gutow. "How we react to those who want to enter our borders and become part of our country says a lot about how well we remember our own stories when we were immigrants looking for a safe haven, a place to rest and live and prosper."

Accenting the political weight of the immigration debate, a trio of U.S. senators figured in last week's interfaith conference. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) joined the luncheon as invited guest speaker. In addition, Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), as well as Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), made unannounced appearances at morning sessions.

Brownback, while noting the "visceral" character of national discourse on immigration, urged religious groups to take part and voiced hope for compromise legislation on the problem.

"This is a big, noisy democracy involved in a big noisy debate," said Brownback, adding, "I think there's a deal to be had here."

Kennedy, who with McCain co-sponsored the original Senate bill on immigration reform, called immigration the "great moral issue of our time" and suggested that an enforcement approach alone would not solve it.

"We have spent 20 billion in the last 10 years ... and we have increased immigration by 300 percent," the senator told the crowd, adding, "We have not got enough fencing ... and enough troops" to secure both the Mexican and Canadian borders, as proposed by some.

Barry Jackson, deputy assistant to President George W. Bush and deputy to the president's senior adviser, also addressed the conference luncheon.

Some 100 of the participants, including representatives from AJCommittee, JCPA and HIAS, took part in visits to members of Congress. Jewish leaders were among those meeting with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The faith group advocates also fanned out to the offices of five other senators, including Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), and lobbied more than nine U.S. House members.

A dozen national Jewish organizations in October signed the Interfaith Statement in Support of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, which calls for pathways to citizenship, accelerated family unification, safe legal migration and humane border protection.

A July addendum on asylum seekers drew the support of the AJCommittee, the Anti-Defamation League, HIAS, JCPA, the Progressive Jewish Alliance, United Jewish Communities and the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring, along with eight other religious groups. This new statement urges that asylum seekers not be turned away solely due to lack of material support or false documents, and that they not be subject to "unnecessary detentions."

The ADL, which sent a representative to last week's event, has voiced concern about how the hot debate over immigration seems to be fueling anti-Hispanic acts ‹ from violent video games to street demonstrations to attacks on people ‹ by neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

"There is a relationship between these deliberations about policy and how immigrants are treated," said ADL associate director for government affairs Stacy Burdett, interviewed at the conference. "As a Jewish group, as a civil rights group, we're mindful that the way we conduct this debate and its outcome will reflect how we embrace diversity and how we welcome others, foreigners."

At a morning session, meanwhile, testimony from a Pentecostal Liberian preacher pointed up recent perils for asylum seekers.

Rev. Edward Neepaye recalled being detained for four months in 2003 after death threats forced him to flee his work with child soldiers in Liberia for the United States.

"Homeland Security is a matter of concern to all of us, but not to the detriment of humane immigration policies," said Neepaye, now living in Rogers, Minn., after finally being granted asylum. "We must be our brother's keeper."

At the morning's panel discussions, ire over what critics see as draconian proposals to punish immigrants and those who serve them bridged the right-left political divide.

From the conservative flank of faith ranks, Rev. Richard Land, president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, flagged his denomination's desire to balance "rule of law" with the mandate to "act redemptively" toward immigrants.

Yet Land also compared a House-approved bill (H.R. 4437) that would penalize providers of aid to undocumented workers with the 19th-century Fugitive Slave Act, which made it a crime to help an escaped slave.

It is "an abomination for our government to criminalize giving a cup of cold water in Jesus' name," said Land.

On the liberal side of the religious spectrum, evangelical author-activist Rev. Jim Wallis suggested that some of the harsher measures being proposed by Congress could unleash civil disobedience.

"When you attack immigrants you attack ... communities of faith, because those people are part of our communities," said Wallis. "This town had better be careful, because people of faith are watching and will respond as we always have to moral issues."

Some Catholic leaders, notably Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, have threatened civil disobedience if the full Congress approves legislation like that condemned by Land and Wallis.

At last week's conference, the executive secretary of the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church, Bishop Roy Sano, urged a national day of civil disobedience if service providers to immigrants would be penalized.

Jewish leaders interviewed later indicated they had no plans for such protest.

"It's a tool in the tool kit," noted Hadar Susskind, JCPA's Washington office director, noting that Gutow was one of two Jewish leaders arrested during an April act of civil disobedience against the Darfur genocide in front of the Sudanese embassy in Washington.

But Susskind sees civil disobedience as "hypothetical," given the political winds prevailing on immigration.

"The Senate will not pass the House bill," Susskind predicted. "I'm sure of that."

Hetfield of HIAS says his group seeks "to work within the laws and make sure our laws are fair and sensible."

Meanwhile, he sees the House-backed penalties on service providers as a "red herring" to divert attention from other parts of H.R. 4437 that his group opposes. These include what he calls a "court-stripping provision" that would mandate deportation of an undocumented person within 100 miles of the border and within 14 days and another that would require prosecution in all cases of passport fraud.

For her part, AJCommittee assistant legislative director Brooke Menschel said that her group will be pursuing its political goals through means other than civil disobedience.

"We understand where organizations who deal with immigrant communities are coming from," said Menschel. "We're in a slightly different place, as we don't provide direct service, so we haven't faced the issue."

Why is it that groups that want dual citizenship and are from other countries all want this "comprehensive" immigration reform?.

NO mention of "Illegal".....they don't want to separate the two. They can't say Illegal. I think they would choke if they did. Millions of "Immigrants" come to this country and NOT ONE person has objected, so they need to SHUT-UP and talk about the issue and face the inevitable impact on all our lives. I am about sick of all this "goody two-show" crap coming out of so-called religious leaders. We all know what their agenda is. When some MS-13 gang banger rapes their daughter and a drunk illegal kills a relative, they will change their tune. Terrorists are led by "religious" leaders, so their opinion means nothing to me, especially when it's so anti-American.

Well it seems that our religous institutions are jumping on the band wagon as well.

My reply to them is no different then the government. ES&D