Thread: Pilgrimage in Georgia to support immigrants

Pilgrimage in Georgia to support immigrants

Published April 20, 2011

Atlanta – Organizations in favor of immigrants and religious leaders are making a pilgrimage through Georgia during Holy Week this year to call attention to the environment of uncertainty being experienced by that community after the state legislature's recent approval of a bill making it a crime to be an undocumented foreigner.

The pilgrimage, which began in Alpharetta and will come to an end on Thursday in Marietta, seeks to emphasize the Christian values of solidarity, faith and hospitality in the face of the current situation of the immigrant community, which organizers say is being used as a scapegoat by politicians in the state.

"We're trying to connect the suffering of immigrants to the suffering of Christ because we must recall what Christ said about what we do to the weakest or the most marginal people, we do to him," Anton Flores-Maisonet, one of the founders of Alterna, a Mennonite missional community in La Grange, Georgia, told Efe.

"We can still build bridges between communities and work for reconciliation via the ideologies that unite us and not the policy that divides us," he said.

The Georgia state legislature last week approved bill HB87, described by critics as a clone of Arizona's controversial SB1070.

Besides allowing police to question people about their immigration status, HB87 mandates sanctions for people who harbor or transport undocumented migrants, prompting a letter of protest from civic and religious organizations that provide services to the immigrant community.

"If this bill becomes law, it will be illegal for me as a Christian, or any other person, to take an undocumented person to the hospital, to school, the supermarket or even to church," said P.J. Edwards, a member of the St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Smyrna.

It should not be necessary for Christians in Georgia to have "to choose between following the laws of the state or the law of the Gospel," he said.

The pilgrims will traverse several counties, including Cobb, Gwinnett and Hall, in which Program 287(g) currently is being implemented, a measure that allows local authorities to look into the immigration status of detained people and turn them over to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, if they prove to be undocumented.

Several organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, have denounced the increase in cases of racial profiling since 287(g) entered into force and say that things will get even worse if HB87 is enacted.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said last week that he was considering signing the anti-immigrant bill.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2 ... mmigrants/

"We're trying to connect the suffering of immigrants to the suffering of Christ

How much deeper can it get?