In-District meetings with your congress persons

Congress is expected to be in recess April 6-17 for the Easter Passover break. Now is the time to schedule meetings with faith leaders and others with your congress person. This information is from our National partner to organize the "Neighbor-to-Neighbor In-district Meetings"

Neighbor-to-Neighbor In-District Meetings

Establishing close relationships with your members of congress is crucial to enacting humane immigration reform.

Purpose of Neighbor to Neighbor In-District Meetings:

1. To understand where the member stands on the issue.
2. To understand that member’s interests.
3. To (hopefully) get a commitment of support for our issue.
4. To build relationships between our people and public officials and institutions influencing our community.
5. To put our faith into action in public arenas.

Because the process of change takes time, lobby visits should be viewed as a part of a larger process. We need to gather information, build power, and continually get better at what we do and how we do it.

I am arranging one meeting with Linda Sanchez in California's 39th District. Contact me immediately to be a part of that meeting.

"Jailed without Justice"

"In the criminal justice system, anyone arrested is assumed innocent, but in the immigration system, they're put in detention, and then it's the individual's burden to prove they shouldn't be detained,"

~ Sarnata Reynolds, author of report to Amnesty International, reported in SFGate Home of the San Francisco Chronicle

A New Declaration of Support for Comprehensive Immigraion Reform

Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform is a coalition of Christian organizations, churches, and leaders from across the theological and political spectrum, united in support of comprehensive U.S. immigration reform. We are working together to see fair and humane immigration reform enacted in Congress this year because we share a set of common moral and theological principles that compel us to love, care for, and seek justice for the stranger among us.

We call for an end to the unproductive, divisive, and fear-driven anti-immigrant rhetoric in the media, which has often castigated all immigrants, regardless of citizenship status, and derailed attempts at true reform. As Christian leaders who share the biblical values named below, we commit to fostering civil dialogue on immigration in our churches and in our communities. We call on President Barack Obama to provide the leadership necessary to move from the hateful rhetoric that has often characterized this national debate to action that will fix our broken immigration system. We look forward to working alongside the president to lead a new national conversation on immigration policy that reflects the best of our moral and civic values.

We stand together in calling on President Obama and Congress to make humane and holistic immigration reform a top priority in 2009.

Our shared principles include the following:

• We believe all people, regardless of national origin or citizenship status, 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 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).

We recognize that the current U.S. immigration system is broken and reform is necessary. The biblical principles above compel us to support immigration reform legislation that includes the following elements:

• Enforcement initiatives that are consistent with humanitarian values;
• Reforms in our family-based immigration system that reduce waiting times for separated families to be reunited;
• A process for all immigrant workers and their families already in the U.S. to earn citizenship upon satisfaction of specific criteria;
• An expansion of legal avenues for workers and families to enter our country and work in a safe and legal manner with their rights and due process fully protected;
• Examining solutions to address the root causes of migration, such as economic disparities between sending and receiving nations.

Spanish/Español

Los Cristianos por una Reforma Migratoria Integral

Los Cristianos por una Reforma Migratoria Integral (CCIR, por sus siglas en inglés) es una coalición de organizaciones, iglesias y líderes cristianos provenientes de una amplia gama teológica y política, unidos en apoyo a una reforma migratoria integral en los Estados Unidos. Trabajamos juntos para presenciar durante este año la promulgación de una reforma migratoria justa y humana en el Congreso, puesto que compartimos una serie de principios morales y teológicos en común que nos exigen amar, cuidar y procurar la justicia para el extranjero entre nosotros.

Hacemos un llamado a poner fin a la retórica que existe en los medios de comunicación, la cual es improductiva, divisiva, basada en el temor y contra los inmigrantes. Con frecuencia, esta retórica ha castigado a todos los inmigrantes, sin importar su condición ciudadana, y ha desviado los intentos dirigidos a lograr una verdadera reforma. Como líderes cristianos que compartimos los valores bíblicos que se mencionan a continuación, nos comprometemos a fomentar un diálogo civil en torno a la inmigración en nuestras iglesias y comunidades. Hacemos un llamado al Presidente Barack Obama a que ofrezca el liderazgo necesario para pasar de una retórica llena de odio — y que a menudo ha caracterizado este debate nacional— hacia la toma de acciones que enmendarán nuestro quebrantado sistema migratorio. Esperamos trabajar juntos con el Presidente en la conducción de un nuevo diálogo nacional sobre políticas migratorias que reflejen lo mejor de nuestros valores morales y cívicos.

Nos unimos para hacer un llamado al Presidente Obama y al Congreso para que el establecimiento de una reforma migratoria humana y holística represente una de las prioridades más grandes del año 2009.

Entre los principios que compartimos se encuentran los siguientes:

• Creemos que todas las personas, sin importar su origen nacional o condición ciudadana, están hechas a “imagen y semejanza de Dios” y merecen que se les trate con dignidad y respeto (Génesis 1:26-27, 9:6).
• Creemos que existe una innegable responsabilidad de amar y mostrar compasión hacia el extranjero entre nosotros (Deuteronomio10:18-19, Levítico 19:33-34, Mateo 25:31-46).
• Creemos que los inmigrantes son nuestros vecinos, literal y figuradamente, y debemos amarlos como a nosotros mismos y mostrar compasión hacia nuestros vecinos más necesitados (Levítico 19:18, Marcos 12:31, Lucas 10:25-37).
• Creemos en el estado de derecho, pero también consideramos que debemos oponernos a las leyes y a los sistemas injustos que lastiman y oprimen a las personas hechas a imagen y semejanza de Dios, especialmente a los más vulnerables (Isaías 10:1-4, Jeremías 7:1-7, Hechos 5:29, Romanos13:1-7).

Reconocemos que el actual sistema migratorio de los Estados Unidos está quebrantado y es por ello que es necesaria una reforma. Los principios bíblicos anteriores nos exigen apoyar la legislación de una reforma migratoria que incluya los siguientes elementos:

• Iniciativas de aplicación y ejecución que sean congruentes con los valores humanitarios;
• Reformas a nuestro sistema migratorio en función de las familias, con el propósito de reducir el tiempo de espera para que se puedan reunir las familias separadas;
• Un proceso para que todos los trabajadores inmigrantes y sus familias que ya se encuentran en los Estados Unidos logren adquirir la nacionalidad, tras cumplir con los criterios específicos establecidos;
• Una ampliación de las vías jurídicas existentes para que los trabajadores y sus familias ingresen a nuestro país y trabajen de forma segura y legal, para que se protejan plenamente sus derechos y el debido proceso; y
• El análisis de soluciones para abordar las causas que originan los movimientos migratorios, tales como las disparidades económicas entre las naciones de las que provienen los inmigrantes y las que los reciben.

Christians at the Border is now available in Spanish

. . . Cristianos en la frontera/ Christians at the Border (Spanish Edition)

GEORGE WILL COLUMN: Immigration reform can stem drug crime

One of the common search terms that land people on this blog are people looking for conservative views on immigration. I personally believe that immigration is neither conservative nor liberal. So welcome to this site.

George Will, certainly a conservative if there ever was one, has written in support of comprehensive immigration reform in a recent column GEORGE WILL COLUMN: Immigration reform can stem drug crime.

By: GEORGE WILL, Washington Post

PHOENIX — Police Chief Jack Harris, a solid block of a man with a shock of thick gray hair, is stolid and patient, but there are limits.

Clearly, he is weary of explaining that this is one of America’s safest large cities, with declining rates of violent crime and property crime.

Unfortunately, there are the kidnappings.

There were 368 reported kidnappings for ransom here last year — perhaps more than anywhere else, other than Mexico City, where kidnapping is such a long-established industry that the wealthy sometimes buy kidnap insurance.

It’s hard to know how many kidnappings occurred there or here: Many are not reported because it can be dangerous to do so. And because they are settled before there is time to report them. Getting a finger severed from the kidnap victim often speeds ransom transactions in Mexico. Not here yet.

In any case, law-abiding citizens here are rarely at risk. Most of the kidnappings are drug smugglers and human traffickers preying on one another.

Some of the smugglers who bring in drugs from Mexico bring people, too, along desert trails and through dry washes, to “drop houses.”

Regarding both drugs and people, Phoenix is a transshipment point: Most of both are distributed to other states. But some of the people become pawns in horrific transactions. A person in the U.S. might pay, say, $2,500 to have someone smuggled into the country, and then might get a phone call: Pay another $5,000, and we will stop raping or torturing — do you hear the screams? — the person you want.

A small “drop house,” with no functioning toilet, may, Chief Harris says, hold 60 people — he has seen 100 — in squalor. Fifty of them just want to move deeper into America in search of work, but all of them might have only their underwear; their clothes having been taken away to prevent them from running away.

The cross-border traffic in narcotics and people is, Harris says, just one way globalization is shaping crime. When the U.S. tightened controls on supplies of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, the precursor chemicals for making methamphetamine, American motorcycle gangs were pushed out of the business. The production of those drugs moved to Mexico, where drug makers imported ephedrine and pseudoephedrine from China.

Phoenix’s familiar sorts of crimes have not much to do with most of the city’s immigrants, legal or illegal. They commit a smaller percentage of the crimes (10 percent) than they are of the city’s population (24 percent). But the lurid crimes that are giving this city an unmerited reputation as dangerous represent the seepage of the Mexican cartels into his city.

For them, Harris says, “The answer is not in Phoenix. The answer is in Washington. “We know how to close a border,” says Harris with acid dryness: “build a wall” and deploy “machine gun nests.”

But “I personally think that is stupid.” For now, however, the U.S. “has turned immigration policy over to Mexican thugs.” So, we have reached a point at which barbed wire, car batteries and acid become the business tools of kidnapper-torturer-extortionists.

With a force large enough to police the nation’s fifth-largest city, Harris can deploy 60 officers to deal with one kidnapping. That would be impossible in smaller cities, to which such crime might be driven by success here. But “don’t give me 50 more” officers to “deal with the symptoms.”

Rather, Harris says, who was raised in a rough Phoenix neighborhood, give me comprehensive immigration reform that controls the borders, provides for whatever seasonal immigration the nation wants, and one way or another settles the status of the 12 million who are here illegally — 55 percent of whom have been here at least eight years.

For those whose profession it is, law enforcement sometimes seems like bailing an ocean with a thimble. Harris wants not a bigger thimble, but a smaller ocean.

Obama says immigration overhaul still needed

COSTA MESA, Calif. (AP) — President Barack Obama said Wednesday he still supports "comprehensive immigration reform," even though he rarely mentions it anymore. Asked about the emotional and politically delicate topic at a town hall format in Southern California, the president said the nation must find a way to strengthen its borders while also giving about 12 million illegal immigrants a path to possible citizenship.

"If they stay in the shadows," he said, some employers will exploit them, hurting wages and work conditions for all American workers.

. . .

Obama said political bickering has hurt the country and promised brighter days ahead.

Click here for the AP article By CHARLES BABINGTON

More Signs Immigration Reform Is On-Track

Press Release

For Immediate Release

March 18, 2009

President Obama’s Meeting With Congressional Hispanic Caucus Positive, Encouraging, Advocate Says

Washington, DC – The entirety of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with President Barack Obama today at the White House and immigration reform was the sole item on the agenda. The following is a statement by Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, a non-Partisan pro-immigrant advocacy organization based in Washington.

Everything we’ve heard about the meeting is very encouraging. The President promised on the campaign trail and has reiterated more recently that immigration reform will be addressed in his first year and the ball is clearly rolling in that direction. It is a very positive sign when the President engages directly with the Members of Congress most knowledgeable and most passionate about reforming our out-dated, punitive, and irrational immigration mess.

Rep. Nydia Valazquez and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus she chairs are engaged in a serious dialogue with the President. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are moving in the right direction and we think the stars are aligning for action this year.

Having felt the sting of harsh rhetoric, talk of mass deportations, and seeing no real progress on reform, immigrants who could become citizens did and then turned out in record numbers last November. Those voters, who because of the immigration issue broke 2-1 for the President and his party, voted for change – change that will mean the difference between their families being broken apart or their families being able to pursue the American Dream. It’s clear the message is getting through. Joining together with all the other constituencies in business, faith, labor, and the immigrant and non-immigrant communities that support immigration reform, progress is being made.

The President is preparing to meet with Mexican President Calderon, which will be another opportunity to discuss how reform can and should be crafted to create a better relationship and a more peaceful border between our countries. President Obama also indicated that resources currently wasted chasing families, workers, and tax-payers in American businesses and neighborhoods may be redeployed against drug and cartel violence plaguing parts of Mexico and the border. We will be watching closely to see how the President and Secretary Napolitano reorder enforcement priorities to focus in on violent criminals and actual or potential threats.

# # #

Open Letter to Honorable Linda T. Sanchez, US Congresswoman, CA-39th District

March 15, 2009

Honorable Linda T. Sanchez
Congresswoman, California 39th Congressional District
United States Congress
17906 Crusader Ave. Suite 100
Cerritos, CA 90703

VIA US Mail and house.gov contact feature

Re: Compassionate Immigration Reform
Familias Unidas Tour, March 13, 2009
at La Placita Church in Los Angeles

To the Honorable Linda T. Sanchez:

I hope this letter finds you in improved health as it was announced that you were unable to attend the Family Unity/Familias Unidas event on March 13 due to illness. I was delighted to be present at La Placita Church (in historic center of Los Angeles’ immigrant past and present) for the Family Unity/Familias Unidas event with representatives from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and others. I was also at the similar event in Ontario, California at St. George’s Catholic Parish with Representatives Luis Gutierrez (IL-4) and Joe Baca (CA-43). I am truly inspired and motivated by the words and actions that I have witnessed at these events.

Because you were unable to attend either of these events, I wanted to report the following information to you and your staff in support of compassionate, comprehensive immigration reform in the first session of the 111th congress before the end of 2009. This letter is lengthy but underscores the importance of this issue at this time. This is especially important for member of Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law Subcommittee, under the Judiciary Committee.

At both of these events shocking stories were told in the first person of working immigrant families being torn apart by actions of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the pretense of homeland security. There were testimonies of arrests being made of workers living peaceful and productive lives in vibrant communities. The reality is that our country is not threatened by the kind of service workers who are being picked up in raids: dishwashers, hotel maids, janitors and others. Therefore, a secondary call at these events has consistently been to ask the new President of the United States Barack Obama to direct Department of Homeland Security and for local law enforcement to go after real threats and real criminals and leave immigrant workers with families alone. I hope you will join in this call.

Representative Diane Watson (CA-33) was at this event gave some remarks and introduced a high school senior from the 39th Congressional District. Ms. Watson’s remarks were especially poignant as she related the story of descendants of slaves, African Americans, and struggle for civil rights in Selma and Birmingham to the situation currently faced by immigrant families who are being separated from their families by rogue law enforcement acting under the cover of law.

She related that the proponents of slavery and the slave owners knew that separating family members, children from parents, and brothers from sisters, was necessary to break the hearts and souls of people and that was part of the system of holding women and men in slavery. (My work address for 15-years was in the 33rd District, previously represented by Julian Dixon and now by Diane Watson.)

Ms. Watson introduced Mr. Fernando Segovia (18) a senior at Southeast High School in South Gate, California. He was born and raised in the United States by immigrant parents and has 2 younger sisters who are also citizens. A judge will decide next week if his mother will be deported or be allowed to remain with her children, work here, and care for her children. Fernando hopes to go to college at Stanford or Columbia University and has earned the grades needed to do so. He works part time to help support the family. He especially needs to work as lawyer fees, required because of this removal action, are mounting up. Fernando will be forced to choose between the hopeful future he described and a promising education and separation from his family or relocating with his family to Mexico.

Fernando addressed to group of congresspersons present and witnessed by 700 others at the church, asking that our government rule on immigration reform so that his family can remain united. With the current situation his life and dreams have come to a halt.

“I only know life in the United States,” Fernando told all of us. “I want to go to college. I dream that someday I will be called ‘Dr. Segovia.’ I don’t want to drop out. If something doesn’t change, everything I have worked for will come to and end. Please pass comprehensive immigration reform this year. My family, millions of other families can’t wait. My little sisters can’t wait. For the love of your own family, please don’t deport mine.”

I agree with Congressman Xavier Becerra in his call on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to start paying attention to and catching real criminals and leave workers and families alone. He called on everyone in the audience, especially those who are not people of color (like myself) to be present and to speak as one for comprehensive immigration reform. He reported that congressional caucuses: Hispanic, African American and Asian are all committed to work together on this issue of reform.

I pray with Father Richard Estrada, who closed the meeting with a prayer for compassionate, comprehensive immigration reform. I hope to hear of Congresswoman Linda Sanchez’s clear support of compassionate, comprehensive immigration reform that keeps families united, provides justice for workers and citizen children. We all must work together in the face of hate language, and xenophobic racist protectionism. We are all God’s family. Let’s all act that way.

I am a volunteer with a national group called Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform organized through the work of Sojourners in Washington, DC. Through my work and church associations, I may be able to help organize other informational meetings in the 39th District around this issue. I called the 39th District office in Cerritos to talk about the event and learn further details about it last week but have not received a call back at the time of this writing. I hope to hear from someone soon. Depending on my schedule, I may be in Washington, DC April 26-29 at the Mobilization to End Poverty organized by Sojourners. I would also like to schedule a visit during that time.


Best Regards,


Glen Peterson

Department of Justice Responds to Calls for Investigation of Arizona Sheriff

Contact: Jason Gedeik, Sojourners, (202) 745-4633, jgedeik@sojo.net

Department of Justice Responds to Calls for Investigation of Arizona Sheriff

Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform letter campaign draws attention to abuses and helps prompt government response

WASHINGTON, DC – March 12, 2009 — Sojourners, a progressive network of Christians promoting the biblical call to social justice, and convener of Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CCIR), today applauded the recent decision by the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into the “discriminatory policy practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures conducted by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).” This action follows the heels of a coordinated national campaign that Sojourners participated in with ACORN, National Day Laborer Organizing Network and America’s Voice that collected over 38,000 letters petitioning Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate alleged civil rights violations of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

“We’re encouraged by the overwhelming support from the faith community to hold our law enforcement officials accountable when they violate basic constitutional rights,” said Allison Johnson, campaign coordinator for CCIR. “While the investigation of Sheriff Arpaio may take months, we must continue our collective efforts to uphold the civil rights and human dignity of immigrants in communities all across the country.”

Arpaio has been accused of racial profiling and repeated civil rights violations while arresting hundreds of undocumented workers in Arizona. He has ordered his deputies to scour Latino neighborhoods looking for undocumented immigrants as part of a federal program that enables local officers to enforce federal immigration laws. The sweeps have sparked two racial-profiling lawsuits while over 2,700 additional lawsuits have been filed against Sheriff Arpaio. This represents more than 50 times as many lawsuits as the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston jail systems combined. Along with an investigation of Sheriff Arpaio, Sojourners asks that the 287(g) partnership between Maricopa County and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement be stopped and federal funding for Arpaio’s office be withdrawn.

According to Connie Andersen of Valley Interfaith Project, a Phoenix organization critical of the Sheriff, “this investigation is long overdue, and points to the need for a deeper conversation about immigration. Arpaio represents what will happen elsewhere if we don’t embrace comprehensive immigration reform, especially in a time of economic fear and anxiety. His demagoguery challenges us to reclaim our faith tradition of welcoming the stranger.”

The letter sent by Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King to Sheriff Arpaio cited that the Department of Justice will investigate alleged “discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures conducted by the MCSO,” among other alleged violations of federal law under the direction of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The formal investigation also follows a request by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) for the Department of Justice to respond to the myriad of complaints of racial profiling in Maricopa County.

David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and a racial profiling expert called this the “first civil-rights investigation stemming from immigration enforcement” undertaken by the Department of Justice.

# #

About Christians For Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CCIR)

CCIR represents a coalition of Christian organizations, churches, and leaders, from across the theological and political spectrum, united in support of comprehensive immigration reform. Despite our differences on other issues, we are working together to pass humane and comprehensive immigration reform as soon as possible, because we share a set of common moral and theological principles that compel us to love and care for the stranger among us.

For more information about CCIR please visit: www.sojo.net/immigration

The Voice of the Undocumented

Proverbs 31:8-9 (TNIV)
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.

Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.

¡Levanta la voz por los que no tienen voz! ¡Defiende los derechos de los desposeídos! ¡Levanta la voz, y hazles justicia! ¡Defiende a los pobres y necesitados! (Proverbios 31:8,9 NVI)

Lea mas de Juan Martinez aqui.

I'm not about this!

Someone with whom I correspond on immigration issues reports that he went to the CA events last weekend (that I attended and have reported on below) and said that it was extremely powerful.

Said that at one point a minuteman who came to protest went inside the church and came out and was crying- he said something like,

I'm not about this,
I don't want kids torn from their families

(don't have the exact quote but wanted to share that).

A message to the President.

Martin Luther King Jr., wrote: “why we can’t wait." Today our message to President Obama and to congress is: We can’t wait.

His number is 202/456-1111. Let him know.

Muslims pledge support for Immigration Reform

Dr. Mustafa Kuku, a representative from the Islamic Center of Riverside, greets those gathered in support and solidarity regarding the unfortunate practices that have separated families. The land belongs to the Lord, declared Mr. Kuku. He explained that Islam has clear teaching regarding justice about the land and the workers. (1) The Lord is compassionate to give the land to all his people. Wherever people are working together for the betterment of the community they should be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labor. (2) It is unethical to allow people to work for us and then kick them out when we have no further need for them. (3) The family is the building brick of community. It is prohibited to separate members of family in Islam. Mr. Kuku committed the support of Muslim brothers to help change the immigration system.

From my notes of comments given at St. George Catholic parish in support of Comprehensive Immigration Reform on March 7, 2009.

"Children need to know that when they come home
their parents will be there. "

~Rep. Joe Baca, US House of Representatives, (D CA-43)

Tour to put face on deportation

Hundreds of people gathered at St. Georges Catholic Parish in Ontario to call on Congress and the President to act on immigration reform yesterday morning.

Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, a Lutheran Pastor declared “We have one heavenly Father; we are one family. When we hear stories of families separated they are our families. One family under God. What family is a family when a brother turns his back on his sister? A broken family? God is not about broken families.” Rev. Salvatierra also represents the New Sanctuary Movement, in 37 cities where faith communities come together to stand for families.

More of the story here.

At St. George's Catholic Parish, Ontario, CA

“We are about comprehensive immigration reform within a biblical and moral context”

~Congressman Luis Gutierrez, (D- IL district 4), March 7, 2009

Faith and civic leaders call for justice for immigrant families

(March 7, 2009, Ontario, California) Hundreds of people of faith walked through the Southern California sunshine into St. George’s Catholic Parish in Ontario, California with a clear message to President Barrack Obama and the United States Congress. The time for Comprehensive Immigration Reform is now and this faith community will stand by the immigrant community until the broken immigration laws are changed.

Two Congressional representatives, Joe Baca (CA-43) and Luis Gutierrez (IL-4) were present to receive the message and pledged their support. “We are about comprehensive immigration reform within a biblical and moral context,” said Rep. Gutierrez, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force.

Catholics, mainline Christians, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Muslims and Jews all prayed for the same thing in this sanctuary. In his invocation, Bishop Gerald Barnes, Diocese of San Bernardino, prayed for the immigrant brothers and sisters whose families are broken apart, for people of faith to love and support their immigrant neighbors, and that the country may turn away from policies that hurt people and tear families apart.

Jennifer (16), Whitney (18), and Wilber (18), who are caught in the injustice of the immigration system testified of the agony felt as their families have been torn apart. They told of how parents have recently been arrested when US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) entered their homes without warrants, claiming they were investigating some kind of crime. Without access to legal representation, some have been deported without a hearing. They have been separated from their families. Wilber explained that his 12-year-old sister had gone to Mexico, a country that she had never even visited before, to be with her mother. Wilber has had to live with relatives since he could not pay rent for the apartment that his mom, sister and he had lived in prior to the abrupt departure.

Pastor Chuck Singleton, Loveland Church in Rancho Cucamonga, California reflected on his growing up in Chicago. When his mother would shop at Spiegel Department Store, they would park and enter through the rear door, as the front door was only for white people. When they would travel by car from Chicago to Louisiana to visit his parents’ relatives, his mother would cook enough food to pack in picnic baskets for the whole trip. He used to believe that she did it because she liked to cook. She did like to cook. The bigger truth, he learned later, was that his family was not allowed to eat in restaurants along the way due to the color of their skin. The difference, said Pastor Singleton, is that when he came home he knew his parents would be there.

Congressman Joe Baca (D CA-43), told the enthusiastic crowd of about 300 that comprehensive immigration reform is needed. We need to work together; we need to pray together for this. There are about 12-million people who do not have and need representation. When people are in need, they don’t go to their congressman; they go to their church. The church must never turns anyone away because we are all children of God.

About 10 anti-immigrant protesters gathered on the sidewalk outside the church as people assembled, chanting anti-immigrant slogans. They used loud noises: megaphone sirens and a revving motorcycle engine in an attempt to disrupt the speakers inside. Rep. Gutierrez reminded those inside that during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, detractors did worse. They burned churches; they even killed some of our leaders. That did not stop those freedom fighters. We will not stop either. Gutierrez alluded to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from “Why We Can’t Wait.” Our message to President Obama today is that we can’t wait for immigration reform.

In the mid 1800s, the anti-immigrant people were wrong about the Irish. At the turn of the 20th century, they were wrong about the Italians. Today, they are wrong about immigrants from Latin America and other places.

At the end of the program, people were invited to walk forward to sign petitions asking the congress and the president to act on immigration reform on the church’s granite alter. The event is part of a 17-city tour led by the Hispanic Caucus and Representative Gutierrez. The petitions will be presented to President Obama at a meeting scheduled later by the Congressmen. Organizers encouraged everyone to take their mobile telephones out and call the president at the Whitehouse, 202/456-1111, to draw attention for the immediate need for comprehensive immigration reform.

Glen Peterson has worked for 30 years with faith-based and community organizations that serve with the poor and immigrant populations dealing with economic development issues and family well-being. He is now a consultant with Capacity Partnership Group <> and blogs at People Migrate .

February National Faith Prayer Vigils Report and Update

At the invitation of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition, 167 communities of faith around the country gathered February 13‐22, 2009, for Prayer, Renewal and Action on Immigration.

They organized prayer events around the country that ranged from large‐scale vigils, to small community gatherings, from worship services, to community meals, all focused on praying for three things:

1) Protection of immigrants and their families
2) Empowerment of people of faith to speak out on behalf of immigrants
3) Moral courage of Members of Congress to enact fair, humane immigration reform

Many of these faith communities have been active in working with immigrants in their communities for years, and they were eager to join with others around the country to raise their voices for comprehensive immigration reform. In communities around the country, people of faith have seen the abuses and dysfunction in our immigration system played out in the lives of men, women and children in their schools, neighborhoods and congregations, and they know the time for comprehensive immigration reform is now.

These same faith communities are already planning next steps and will be organizing hundreds of “Neighbor to Neighbor” meetings with members of Congress from April 6‐17. Through the language and practices of their faith, members of congregations, synagogues and mosques are sending a clear message to Congress and the Obama administration: the time for fair, humane immigration reform that honors the best of our common values is now.

Jeb Bush, Conservatives on Immigration

Quoted in the Wall Street Journal:

Republicans must also clean up their act on immigration, Mr. Bush insists. Last year, he says they "set a tone" that pushed Hispanic voters away. "The tone of the debate reached a point that was very damning to the Republican Party, and the evidence is in. The chest pounders lost." Immigration reform as championed by his brother and John McCain, which would allow illegals already in this country to stay. "Politics has to be about ideas and values and aspirations." he says. "It shouldn't be about anger and preying on people's emotions. You can't lead a mob."

"Conservative view of immigration" search on Google land quite a few people here.