http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_3216584

Article Launched: 11/15/2005 01:00:00 AM

Tancredo blasts shield for religious groups
He says that by allowing illegal-immigrant volunteers, a new law will aid terrorism.
By Anne C. Mulkern
Denver Post Staff Writer

Washington - A new law that insulates religious groups from prosecution if they use illegal immigrants as volunteers drew outrage Monday from U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, who said it will protect terrorists and that he'll work to repeal it.

"This provision opens a hole in our immigration system so big, a terrorist could drive a truck bomb through it," Tancredo, a Littleton Republican, said in a statement.

"Terrorists in the United States have used religious organizations as fronts before," he said. "This provides legal cover for any church, synagogue, mosque or group that calls itself a religion to aid and abet illegals who may pose a national security threat."

Written by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, the provision shields religious groups from a federal law against knowingly transporting, concealing, harboring or shielding an illegal immigrant.

That law no longer applies to religious groups as long as the illegal immigrant is volunteering in a religious capacity, such as work as a missionary or in a soup kitchen.

Bennett, chairman of the Senate committee that funds agricultural programs, added the language to a funding bill for the Agriculture Department. It was signed into law Thursday by President Bush.

"It does not under any circumstances allow a terrorist or any illegal alien any kind of special sanctuary," Bennett said Monday. Church volunteers who are illegal immigrants could still face legal action, he said.

He said the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration laws as well as terrorism issues, signed off on the language in the new law.

Bennett wrote the provision at the behest of attorneys for the Mormon Church, which, according to Bennett, uses the largest number of volunteers of any U.S. religious group.

A spokesman for the church, Michael Purdy, said the law will allow illegal

immigrants to serve as Mormon missionaries, which they previously could not do.
"This narrow exception to the immigration act allows people of all faiths to fulfill their religious obligations," Purdy said.

Asked if a church might be protected if it housed illegal immigrants, Bennett said, "No, I don't think so." Bennett said the law does not protect religious groups acting as fronts for terrorists.

But Tancredo's spokesman, Will Adams, said that while Bennett might intend for the law to apply only to soup- kitchen volunteers or missionaries, it will give shelter to those working with terrorists.

While previously the Department of Justice could charge a religious group with immigration violations while it investigated alleged terrorist activities, it no longer can under the new law, said Adams, who previously worked as a Justice Department spokesman.

He said a large number of terrorism cases are first brought as immigration violations and that religious groups have been charged with sheltering terrorists in the past.

Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to inquiries about the new law.