Thread: Evangelicals Launch Immigration Initiative

Evangelicals Launch Immigration Initiative
New Sanctuary Movement Will Protect Some Illegal Immigrants

POSTED: 11:31 am PDT May 8, 2007
UPDATED: 3:01 pm PDT May 8, 2007


WASHINGTON -- Days before launching a nationwide advertising campaign, a coalition of evangelicals said that churches across America are preparing to offer sanctuary to illegal immigrants whose deportation would separate them from their families.

Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform's members include more than 100 evangelical, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic and social-service groups and activists. It is already running adds in Washington, D.C., political newspapers Roll Call and Congress Daily.


"Enact policies that guarantee humanitarian border enforcement, family-reunification efforts, opportunities for employment and an earned path to citizenship," the ads say.

The Senate could take up a new version of stalled immigration legislation as early as Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, who heads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said some evasngelical churches will protect immigrants facing deportation from what he calls "egregious actions against their welfare and families."

Adam Taylor, an organizer for the liberal evangelical group Sojourners/Call To Renewal, said the New Sanctuary Movement will show the human cost of enforcing existing immigration laws. He doesn't believe that participating churches will be doing anything illegal, he said.

Sojourners' president, the Rev. Jim Wallis, says Christians should follow the Bible's mandate to treat "the stranger" like a citizen, or like they would treat Jesus himself.

The group's Web site states:

"We believe that all people, regardless of national origin, are made in the "image of God" and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect (Genesis 1:26-27, 9:6).

"We believe there is an undeniable biblical responsibility to love and show compassion for the stranger among us (Deuteronomy 10:18-19, Leviticus 19:33-34, Matthew 25:31-46).

"We believe that immigrants are our neighbors, both literally and figuratively, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves and show mercy to neighbors in need (Leviticus 19:18, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:25-37).

"We believe in the rule of law, but we also believe that we are to oppose unjust laws and systems that harm and oppress people made in God's image, especially the vulnerable (Isaiah 10:1-4, Jeremiah 7:1-7, Acts 5:29, Romans 13:1-7).

"Immigration is for us a religious issue," Wallis said.

New Legislation Under Wraps

Meanwhile, the Bush administration and some key U.S. senators are working on a deal that would delay a sweeping immigration overhaul until the border is fortified.

The Associated Press reported the plan would leave illegal immigrants waiting up to 13 more years to gain legal status.

Officials familiar with the discussions said that despite concessions, a final agreement may not come before the Senate opens debate on the issue next week.

The package negotiated by Senate Democrats, Republicans and Bush administration officials:

Delays any guest worker program or path to citizenship for illegal immigrants until certain "triggers" are met. They include hiring thousands of new border guards, erecting hundreds of miles of fencing and vehicle barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border and having a biometric identification system for immigrant workers in place.

Allows illegal immigrants who paid large fines and returned to their countries of origin to earn permanent residency and eventually apply for citizenship. Narrows visa preferences for family members of legalized immigrants.

Imposes up to a 13-year wait on illegal immigrants seeking legal status to obtain green cards for permanent residency. Visa backlogs for those already waiting in line would be cleared in eight years, and then the government would begin processing the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants over a five-year period.

Creates a temporary guest worker program and bars immigrant workers from bringing their families to the U.S. unless their incomes exceed 150 percent of the poverty level and they have health insurance.

Immigration law changes that passed the Senate in 2006 but that were rejected by the House would have allowed illegal immigrants who have been in the country five years or more to remain, continue working and eventually become legal permanent residents and citizens after paying fines and back taxes and learning English.

Thye law would have required illegal immigrants in the U.S. between two and five years to go to a point of entry at the border and file an application to return. Those in the country less than two years would have to leave.

The final bill also provided 200,000 new temporary "guest worker" visas a year, and created a special guest worker program for an estimated 1.5 million immigrant farm workers, who could also earn legal permanent residency.

It also authorized new border security measures, including 370 miles of new triple-layered fencing plus 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border; 14,000 additional Border Patrol agents by 2011; and additional detention facilities for apprehended illegal immigrants.

http://www.kptv.com/politics/13278705/detail.html

Here come the hand wringers.

I hope that the church's who do offer sanctuary will also cough up the money it takes to support the illegals. I for one will not give a dime to any religious organization who offers sanctuary to people who invaded this country. The invaders were not oppressed or in mortal danger in their own countries. They came here to lie, cheat and steal. Why should we have to look the other way while they steal our land and our childrens future?

I think that these people are misinterpreting the scriptures, but I do not have time to undertake a comprehensive study of the text surrounding the quotations nor to go over the original Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew texts with knowledgeable people.

Here is what I got in the time that I had:



Hebrews 13:2
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Romans 12:13
Contribute to the needs of the saint, practice hospitality.
[And that is the only relevant prose in the surrounding text]



American Heritage Dictionary:

Hospitality:
1) Cordial and generous reception of guests.



Leviticus 19:34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

HOWEVER,

Leviticus 19:33 And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.

American Heritage Dictionary:

Sojurn: v: To stay for a time; reside temporarily n: A temporary stay; brief residence.

Note: 19:34 is expressly based on the experience of the Jews in Egypt. But the Jews originally went to Egypt in such large numbers because of a famine in all the surrounding lands. I think that what it said in the surrounding verses of 19:34. It said there was a famine IN ALL THE SURROUNDING LANDS. No such thing in Mexico, the rest of Central America, or Latin America, nor Ireland, nor China, nor Korea (all of which are sending us illegal entrants]. It seems to me that the passage leaves plenty of room for saying that once the famine is over, the “alien” may be required to leave.

I am sure that the Bible resolutely condemns those who break the law to get more money.

A colleague at work, who is Chinese and is here lawfully told me this Saturday, "I know some illegal people from China. They just want to make more money."
Would not the Bible condemn violating the law to make more money?

My colleague continued that within her experience of living in the Chinese community and knowing people who have gone up for asylum requests, 99% of those seeking asylum are lying about the dangers they face if they go home.

Doesn't the Bible have something to say about lying in a court of law?

Congregations to Give Haven to Immigrants

By JAMES BARRON
Published: May 9, 2007
Recalling a movement that challenged United States policy in Central America in the 1980s, several religious congregations in New York and other cities will announce a campaign Wednesday to provide sanctuary to illegal immigrants who face deportation.

As of Tuesday, the organizers of what is being called the New Sanctuary Movement said that five churches in New York City had already offered assistance to two families — one from China and one from Haiti — and would provide them with shelter if the federal government moved to enforce the deportation orders filed against them.

“We’re launching now because we’re fed up with detentions, deportations and raids,” said the Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper, the senior minister of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. “We felt it was not morally possible to remain silent.”

Dr. Schaper and a half-dozen other religious leaders are scheduled to gather this morning at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, a Roman Catholic parish at 405 West 59th Street, near Columbus Avenue, to announce their participation in the campaign.

Other announcements about the New Sanctuary Movement are scheduled in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego and Seattle, and the organizers said that prayer vigils supporting the effort would be held in other cities.

The campaign comes as Congress and the Bush administration wrangle over immigration reform. President Bush and many Democrats have called for a path to legalize some 12 million illegal immigrants, but a significant number of Republicans in Congress advocate a broader campaign of deportations.

“We don’t expect any easy answers, but we believe the moral issues have to be lifted up,” said the Rev. David Rommerein, the pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brooklyn, which has been debating how it can help the campaign.

Juan Carlos Ruiz, one of three national coordinators of the New Sanctuary Movement, said one inspiration for the project was the case of Elvira Arellano, a Mexican woman who came to the United States illegally in the 1990s and who has been living under sanctuary at a Chicago church since August.

In New York, three Lutheran churches in Brooklyn have been looking after one immigrant family, while Judson Memorial and the Riverside Church in Manhattan have been monitoring the deportation case involving another, organizers said.

A sanctuary movement news release said one of the families is headed by Joe Liang, 26, and his wife, Mei Xing, 25, who have two children — one 15 months old, the other 2 months old — who were born here.

Mr. Liang, who buses tables at a Manhattan restaurant, said yesterday that he came to the United States from China 10 years ago, seeking asylum. “We lost our case,” he said. “That’s why we have a deportation order. Many people in our situation, even our caseworker, says the system is not right. Thank God we have the church leaders who are willing to help us out.”

The second family lives in Brooklyn, the organizers said. The husband, who would identify himself only as Jean, 38, fled Haiti in 1986. He had a green card but was ordered to be deported because of a drug conviction.

Dr. Schaper, of Judson Memorial Church, said the movement organizers were motivated by an increase in detentions and deportations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials recently reported that they removed 221,664 illegal immigrants over the last year, an increase of more than 37,000 over the year before.

“The increase is less the problem than the actual fact of it,” Dr. Schaper said. “We felt, why is anybody being detained or deported?”

It was not immediately clear whether the government would send agents into churches that harbor immigrants or what legal standing they would have to do so.

“We certainly understand, as does everybody, that nobody is above the law and that removal orders are issued by a federal judge, and they are something that should be complied with,” Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview.

Religious leaders say the notion of providing sanctuary is rooted in American tradition. Churches provided sanctuary to help blacks escape slavery and draftees avoid serving in the Vietnam War.

But in the 1980s, when churches were involved in efforts to resettle Central Americans fleeing civil wars, the federal government said the church-as-sanctuary tradition had no standing in American law. Eight church workers were eventually convicted of criminal conspiracy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/nyreg ... ref=slogin

Lets see how much compassion they have if you take away their tax exempt status