Immigration Reform: The time has come

by Jim Wallis 06-11-2009

The time has come for comprehensive immigration reform. After several failed attempts in past years, the president has promised it and the White House is showing a clear commitment to it. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that it is one of his top three priorities for this year. Next week, the president will meet at the White House with congressional leadership on immigration reform. The debate on reform is moving and will only intensify.

There is a new factor now in the debate. A grassroots movement is growing across the country and there is increasing support for reform. And the faith community is playing a major role. In fact, the growing movement toward immigration reform is deeply rooted in the faith community, across the political spectrum. It’s very important to note that this isn’t a liberal or a “Left” issue anymore, or even an “ethnic” issue. There are conservative Christian leaders, Latino, African-American, and Anglo, who are seeing immigration reform as a critical matter of faith, not just another political issue or a special interests issue.

Around the country, people of faith are taking action. The Family Unity tour sponsored by Rep. Luis Gutierrez traveled to evangelical churches in over 21 cities over the past year, calling people of faith to take action against the separation of families. Clergy in Iowa are organizing and taking a prophetic stance in support of immigration reform after the devastating Postville raid in May 2008. We were part of an effort that sent 30,000 letters to the Department of Justice to stop Sheriff Arpaio and his racial profiling of Latinos in Arizona. We haven’t seen a response to an action alert like that in some time. We see clergy holding vigils at detention centers calling for just treatment of immigrants that were denied due process. Family values are at stake here. When the U.S. government is separating families, it is getting at the heart of our Christian conviction. There is now the activity and momentum of a real movement across the country. A rising tide of Christian faith says that this is something that we can no longer ignore. The timing is right and hopefully this fall we will see a strong effort from the White House on comprehensive immigration reform.

In response, we have re-launched Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. A new statement of principles has already been endorsed by 27 national religious organizations and 40 leaders. It proposes five guiding principles:

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.

You can sign the statement of principles and join the growing movement of Christians who are deeply concerned about the lack of immigration reform in our nation. And to support the growing grassroots movement for immigration reform, a new interactive Web site has also been launched, designed to equip the faith community to engage in the immigration debate. The site features organizing resources and a clearinghouse of information on the need for immigration reform and the role the faith community can play in supporting reform efforts.

The time has come. We need comprehensive immigration reform. And with people of faith leading the way, we can achieve it.

Jim Wallis is CEO of Sojourners.

Categories: Activism, Faith and Politics, Immigration

Tags: Africa, African-American, America, Arizona, Campaign, Christian, christian faith, christian leaders, Christians, christians for comprehensive immigration reform, church, citizens, commitment, Community, Congress, congressional leadership, Conservative, critical matter, debate, detention, detention centers, due process, economic disparities, ethnic, ethnic issue, Evangelical, evangelical churches, failed attempts, faith community, family unity, government, grassroots, grassroots movement, Hispanic, Hope, human, Immigrant, immigrants, Immigration, immigration system, Iowa, justice, Latino, Latinos, Liberal, luis gutierrez, matter of faith, Migrants, Movement, organizing, political spectrum, Postville, President, principle, priorities, Prophetic, racial profiling, Religious, religious organization, senate majority leader, senate majority leader harry, senate majority leader harry reid, sheriff arpaio, Sojourners, system, White House, Workers

tlwinslow

Mexicans are our neighbors, and you know what God said about that.

The age-old pesky U.S.-Mexico border problem has taxed the resources of both countries, led to long lists of injustices, and appears to be heading only for worse troubles in the future. Guess what? The border problem can never be solved. Why? Because the border IS the problem! It's time for a paradigm change.

Never fear, a satisfying, comprehensive solution is within reach: the Megamerge Dissolution Solution. Simply dissolve the border along with the failed Mexican government, and megamerge the two countries under U.S. law, with mass free 2-way migration eventually equalizing the development and opportunities permanently, with justice and without racism, and without threatening U.S. sovereignty or basic principles.

To learn more, Google "Megamerge Dissolution Solution".

tlwinslow

The age-old pesky U.S.-Mexico border problem has taxed the resources of both countries, led to long lists of injustices, and appears to be heading only for worse troubles in the future. Guess what? The border problem can never be solved. Why? Because the border IS the problem! It's time for a paradigm change.

Never fear, a satisfying, comprehensive solution is within reach: the Megamerge Dissolution Solution. Simply dissolve the border along with the failed Mexican government, and megamerge the two countries under U.S. law, with mass free 2-way migration eventually equalizing the development and opportunities permanently, with justice and without racism, and without threatening U.S. sovereignty or basic principles.

To learn how, Google "Megamerge Dissolution Solution".

raharbinson

The problem is that the system is broken. You obviously don't know how long it takes one who LEGALLY petitions this country to get processed. I know a case of a mother and daughter who started the process 25 years ago, The daughter was 3 years old at the time.

Their sponsor was the mothers's sister, a US Citizen, and an assistant Professor at one of our Universities. The mother has just got her paperwork processed and the daughter who is now 28 years old is still waiting.

Is it any wonder we have illegal immigrants??????????????

Robert A. Harbinson.
raharbinson@gmail.com

arthurpena

Yes! Well put.

I'd be interested to know what you think of my post "Sky and Round Earth/Truth and Relativity", on my website "wordsandtheword.wordpress.com"....

Let me know if you do happen to look it up and read it.

arthurpena

You said: "'First' world policies create the need to migrate in the first place. NAFTA created a huge upsurge in immigration. Why? Because it formed the basis for American corporations to take over the family farms in Mexico, leaving family farmers and their workers without a livelihood."

Excellent point. Or, I should say, at least I think so. I'm not familiar with that particular aspect of the immigration problem that you mentioned. However, IF true, that is the kind of thing that needs to be hammered home again and again and again. For what IS certainly true is this: reactionary politics always depends on getting Americans to feel victimized (by dictators we ourselves installed; by immigrants we ourselves forced into desperate search for work abroad; by gays trying to attain equality in a country where only a few decades ago homosexuality was illegal and punishable by imprisonment). What reactionary politics tries to do at all costs is to get people to fail to recognize our complicity in the wrongs of the world, and the ways in which we ourselves have contributed to our predicaments. It depends, for its lifeblood, on getting "us" to blame "them". Fortunately, a small dose of truth goes a long way to counter their rants. So, are you sure about what you said? Any easy-to-locate sources I could check out?

arthurpena

Hey again,
Just started checking out your website a few minutes ago, and already found interesting stuff. I didn't realize that Cesar Chavez was, at one point in his political evolution at least, quite opposed to illegal immigration.

But, you know, how we interpret facts, and the significance we see in them, depends on our larger worldviews. For example, I too am against illegal immigration, for some of the same reasons Chavez was: it lowers wages and interfers with union activism. But it is the border and the laws which make them illegal that I am against.....

I am an internationalist by intellectual conviction and spiritual sympathy (an internationalist who is VERY wary of the kind of top-down capitalist-driven NAFTA kind of "globalization" taking place, by the way). I see the determination of who "my neighbor" is as "border-blind". And I see real, lasting solutions as stemming from a vision born of international solidarity--not what I see as "narrow" nationalist perspectives.

I do have to admit that I am not at all sure what to do in a real-world practical sense. I mean, the borders are, in fact, there. And we are, in fact, two different nations. But I am quite sure that the worldview, the heart-perspective, from which one examines these problems is as important as a discussion of the nitty-gritty practical policy questions.

arthurpena

On one level, you're right of course. But there are what I believe to be deeper levels and broader perspectives possible.

So, yes, the U.S. is separating families legally. And, technically speaking, the immigrants are "criminals". But we all break the law (speeding, fudging ever so slightly on taxes, etc.). And "illegal" is not synonymous with "wrong". Sometimes the RIGHT thing to do is the ILLEGAL thing.

Consider another level to the "separating families" issue: the U.S. separated familes when it took the land and created the border. Just as East Germany separated families when they built their wall. Both were acts of political aggression. As the Mexicans quite rightly say: "we didn't cross the border; the border crossed us".

The border is a relatively artificial political imposition upon a more fluid, interconnected human social and economic reality.

I'll check out your website. Mine is "wordsandtheword.wordpress.com", post "illegal immigration".

JamesM

Immigration reform did not make the Filipinos wait longer. That is where you are mistaken. What happened is that the US has a per country quota and the Phillippines has historically had high immigraiton. I do not think that it is good to have them wait that long. But to somehow find causation in the 1986 immigration reform act is simply a mis-characterization of what happened. The government did not take numbers away from the legal immigrants to give to the legal immigrants.

wendelberry

What is up with this article? I normally enjoy Jim Wallis' excellent writing, but this article is very repetitive and doesn't actually say anything. I hope he hasn't been researching keyword density!

WaveTossed

"No, I don't want a police state. I think that our government should enforce the current laws and be fair to the people who are waiting, for decades, to come here, legally. It's unfair, if our government forces them to wait, while allowing the illegals to remain in the U.S."

The way to help people waiting for decades to come here is to reform and streamline the INS and our immigration system. Streamlining the immigration system will allow honest workers to come here legally and will allow employers to get the workers that they need. We can still keep out criminals and terrorists.

However, the political will to reform and streamline the immigration system and the INS is non-existent. It's a lot easier to blame "illegals" and keep the current exploitive system in place.

WaveTossed

I agree with you. The whole thing about "illegals" is mainly a cover-up for racism and xenophobia.

People don't want to blame the actions of employers, politicians, citizens who help keep this exploitive human trafficking system in place. It's a lot easier, it seems to blame the victims of this human trafficking.

mrkemp

FilmDoctor, based on what you have written here, I don't believe you are a "racist." And I don't think anyone disagreeing with you here is a "loon." We do have fundamental differences in the way we read and interpret scripture. But as long as we keep name-calling and claiming the way we read and interpret scripture is the "right" way, the anger will continue to build and build and build until people start blowing up things and killing people. In fact, it's already happening. Dr. Tiller was killed by a terrorist who was no more or less dangerous than the individual terrorists who believed so wholeheartedly that their particular interpretation of Islam was right interpretation that they chose to fly an airplane into the World Trade Center. I believe that fundamentalists of all kinds -- Christian, Islamic, left wing and right wing -- need to just start chilling out and internalizing the fact that people see and interpret and believe things differently, and that's not going to change. So the answer is to start looking for common ground and then building up from there. As long as we remain inflexible and absolutely certain that our way is the right way, we're in a heap of a lot of trouble. And sadly, that's happening more and more right here on our soil. We needn't worry about "illegal aliens” or terrorists from other countries when our belief systems already have us killing each other. One of the simplest concepts in the Bible I have is that of unconditional love. Within that concept is tolerance (from all sides), compassion, acceptance -- all kinds of good stuff that could potentially save our butts from a very dark future.

mrkemp

FilmDoctor: Based on what you have written here, I don't believe you are a "racist." And I don't think anyone disagreeing with you here is a "loon." We do have fundamental differences in the way we read and interpret scripture. But as long as we keep name-calling and claiming the way we read and interpret scripture is the "right" way, the anger will continue to build and build and build until people start blowing up things and killing people. In fact, it's already happening. Dr. Tiller was killed by a terrorist who was no more or less dangerous than the individual terrorists who believed so wholeheartedly that their particular interpretation of Islam was right interpretation that they chose to fly an airplane into the World Trade Center. I believe that fundamentalists of all kinds -- Christian, Islamic, left wing and right wing -- need to just start chilling out and internalizing the fact that people see and interpret and believe things differently, and that's not going to change. So the answer is to start looking for common ground and then building up from there. As long as we remain inflexible and absolutely certain that our way is the right way, we're in a heap of a lot of trouble. And sadly, that's happening more and more right here on our soil. We needn't worry about "illegal aliens” or terrorists from other countries when our belief systems already have us killing each other. One of the simplest concepts in the Bible I have is that of unconditional love. Within that concept is tolerance (from all sides), compassion, acceptance -- all kinds of good stuff that could potentially save our butts from a very dark future.

FilmDoctor

I am not opposed to all legal immigration, but I do think immigrants should make more of an effort to assimilate so that we can truly be "Out of Many One" and that it could be slowed down significantly. But, I reiterate, iof you want more immigrants, please work to increase the quotas and nuber of people legally immigrating; don't give a pass to those who come here illegally or overstay their Visas like some of the 9/11 terrorists (from what I understand).

mrkemp

FilmDoctor, based on what you have written here, I don't believe you are a "racist." And I don't think anyone disagreeing with you here is a "loon." We do have fundamental differences in the way we read and interpret scripture. But as long as we keep name-calling and claiming the way we read and interpret scripture is the "right" way, the anger will continue to build and build and build until people start blowing up things and killing people. In fact, it's already happening. Dr. Tiller was killed by a terrorist who was no more or less dangerous than the individual terrorists who believed so wholeheartedly that their particular interpretation of Islam was right that they chose to fly an airplane into the World Trade Center. I believe that fundamentalists of all kinds -- Christian, Islamic, left wing and right wing -- need to just start chilling out and internalizing the fact that people see and interpret and believe things differently, and that's not going to change. So the answer is to start looking for common ground and then building up from there. As long as we remain inflexible and absolutely certain that our way is the right way, we're in a heap of a lot of trouble. And sadly, that's happening more and more right here on our soil. We needn't worry about terrorists or "illegal" immigrants from other countries when our belief systems already have us killing ourselves. One of the simplest concepts in the Bible I have is that of unconditional love. Within that concept is tolerance (from all sides), compassion, acceptance -- all kinds of good stuff that could potentially save our butts from a very dark future.

mrkemp

FilmDoctor, based on what you have written here, I don't believe you are a "racist." And I don't think anyone disagreeing with you here is a "loon." We do have fundamental differences in the way we read and interpret scripture. But as long as we keep name-calling and claiming the way we read and interpret scripture is the "right" way, the anger will continue to build and build and build until people start blowing up things and killing people. In fact, it's already happening. Dr. Tiller was killed by a terrorist who was no more or less dangerous than the individual terrorists who believed so wholeheartedly that their particular interpretation of of Islam was right that they chose to fly an airplane into the World Trade Center. I believe that fundamentalists of all kinds -- Christian, Islamic, left wing and right wing -- need to just start chilling out and internalizing the fact that people see and interpret and believe things differently, and that's not going to change. So the answer is to start looking for common ground and then building up from there. As long as we remain inflexible and absolutely certain that our way is the right way, we're in a heap of a lot of trouble. And sadly, that's happening more and more right here on our soil. We needn't worry about terrorists or "illegal" immigrants from other countries when our belief systems already have us killing ourselves. One of the simplest concepts in the Bible I have is that of unconditional love. Within that concept is tolerance (from all sides), compassion, acceptance -- all kinds of good stuff that could potentially save our asses from a very dark future.

PhilCollins

No, I don't want a police state. I think that our government should enforce the current laws and be fair to the people who are waiting, for decades, to come here, legally. It's unfair, if our government forces them to wait, while allowing the illegals to remain in the U.S.

staplesr

FilmDoctor, you must be God then. Are you? Who can judge Dr. Tiller, you or God? I don't think you can make the statement that he was evil. By doing so, you are affirming the right of all hateful people, like Dick Cheney and G.W. to write off whole nations and whole religions as evil.

Your point about hate speech and the distortion of the 'words racism and sexism' shows you cannot separate your psychological perceptions and judgments from the dialog and social reality of racism and sexism. Just because you think that there is only 'Racism' with a capital R doesn't mean that there isn't racism that you don't see or are consciously aware of. Read John Dividio's work on 'Aversive Racism'.

By the way, I'm a well educated 'leftist loon' that is Christian, protests, and is politically active with several reproductive rights groups. Hope that makes your day.

staplesr

Do you want a police state? Don't you recognize that the whole battle about 'illegals' is a distraction that has worked effectively to keep our attention off of the economic disaster that corporations have wrought on our country?

Immigrants have always been in America. The concept of 'illegals' is a political propaganda idea that has no basis on reality. To think that our current police forces could keep immigrants away by monitoring and fining all employers is absurd!

Look at Europe now. It is reliving their history of AntiSemitism, only now its:

Italy against the gypsies...
Germany against the Turks ...
France against anyone who dresses differently in school...

All this is a denial of history, a denial of difference, and ultimately a denial of class and race. Anyone that believes in assimilation as a viable acculturation policy is living a fantasy. It has never worked. We've only ignored the reality and politely stayed away from overt racism.

Just because we think we are not racist doesn't mean we aren't.