GIVE THIS TO YOUR PASTOR, PRIEST, OR RABBI

A timely post from www.numbersusa.com about something for your pastor. This follows this post about Evangelical Christian Leaders. This follows this post about the Arizona Legal Defense Fund. This follows this post contrasting Texas and California and this post about the MURDER of ROBERT KRENTZ, who the protestors and boycotters won't give a solution for, but will call Americans racist for trying to prevent another MURDER, and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.


GIVE THIS TO YOUR PASTOR, PRIEST, OR RABBI

Once again today, a group of national Christian leaders testified before Congress that the Christian thing to do about immigration during this time of high unemployment is a) to give permanent work permits to illegal aliens b) and to import more foreign workers. Below is the testimony of the sole Christian layman who was a witness among the clergy. I think you will agree that his theological understanding is far more perceptive than that of the Catholic, Baptist and Evangelical clergy who insisted on rewarding millions of illegal aliens.
Dr. James Edwards' key point was this: MANY NATIONAL CHRISTIAN LEADERS LOBBY FOR MERCY (AMNESTY) FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS BUT THAT MERCY WOULD CREATE INJUSTICE FOR INNOCENT LAW-ABIDING AMERICANS (ESPECIALLY THE UNEMPLOYED) GOVERNMENTS ARE CALLED TO PROVIDE JUSTICE I have some hope that most of the nation's clergy will be reluctant to join the many national Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, Assemblies of God, Presbyterian and Baptist leaders in their lobbying for amnesty. But most of your pastors probably have never heard anything but a sentimentalist appeal for amnesty based on Christian and Jewish scripture's admonition to not mistreat the alien (or sojourner, or stranger). You owe it to your pastor to ask him/her to read Dr. Edwards' testimony before perhaps following good intentions that lead to extremely unpopular and theologically questionable pronouncements in favor of amnesty and "comprehensive immigration reform." We invite all clergy to join the clergy already among our more than 1 million members in reviewing the content of our website at www.NumbersUSA.com. NumbersUSA has always called for the humane treatment of illegal aliens and works for reduced overall immigration based on the numbers but not the character or characteristics of immigrants.
AN ETHICAL CHRISTIAN APPROACH TO IMMIGRATION REFORM by Dr. James Edwards Madame Chairman, Ranking Member King, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. It is right to consider how Scripture and Judeo-Christian principles should inform such public issues as immigration. I appreciate the opportunity to share my own considered views on this subject. The critical point to begin from is to differentiate between what the Bible teaches are moral imperatives applicable to individuals and those that are applicable corporately. That is, some precepts might bind one as a Christian that do not apply to the United States government. Indeed, biblical precepts in which Christ requires us personally to show mercy or compassion or forgiveness might not apply to the civil government of the nation-state of which we are citizens. Sometimes, such application would actually be harmful and wrong. First, I will discuss a key biblical principle that relates to today’s American immigration debate. Second, I will suggest some implications of “comprehensive immigration reform” that ought to inform Congress’s immigration policymaking. *** To begin, what are the most relevant principles from Scripture that relate to U.S. immigration policy in 2010? I have written about this at length elsewhere and testified before this subcommittee on the subject. So, I will focus this morning on one key principle. Christians as individuals are bound to a high moral imperative, which should be familiar to many of us: Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. These cornerstone precepts, as elaborated by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere in the Bible, instruct believers to go so far as to “love your enemies,” “bless those who curse you,” and care for “the least of these my brothers.” Considered alongside Micah 6:8 — “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” — it becomes clear that faithfully living up to those standards is tough. In fact, it is impossible even for those indwelt by the Holy Spirit. In other words, exhibiting Christian mercy and compassion is not for sissies. But do these high standards apply to civil government? To an extent. For instance, U.S. laws reflect such biblical standards as providing for due process, impartial justice, and prohibiting torturous punishment of criminals. But to attempt to require civil authority to display the same manner of mercy or compassion that individual Christians are commanded to display would be ludicrous. Yet that is what certain advocates in the immigration debate unreasonably demand. We must understand the God-given role of civil government. Romans 13 clearly teaches that civil authorities are God’s agents in their own specific jurisdictions to constrain evil. Civil authority wields the sword of justice to protect the innocent within its jurisdiction and to punish lawbreakers. The mission, described here and in I Peter 2 and Titus 3, is to “carry out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” In the Bible, the “things that are Caesar’s” are concentrated on justice. God deputizes civil authorities as part of His common grace, because we live in a fallen world. Evil exists, and government constrains evil within a body politic. A civil government necessarily and prudently refrains from overdoing compassion or mercy. The reasons include that officials act merely as agents of the citizens they represent. Public acts of government differ fundamentally from individual acts. Grasping this concept is critical. Otherwise, it could lead to misguided and erroneous courses of action, such as jumping from the early church members’ voluntarily sharing their private resources within the body of believers in Acts 2 to conjuring some supposed biblical directive for socialism. Compassion and mercy, as exercised by an individual, amount to his or her deciding willingly to bear an injustice. It is merciful when a private person turns the other cheek, goes the extra mile, gives up his tunic, and shares with a beggar. However, the government cannot itself do any of those things. Rather, the government only can obligate the members of its society and their common resources. Thus,
A compassionate act often becomes an injustice when compelled by civil government.
Trying to codify mercy, the agents who are supposed to be the guardians of justice for their citizens can end up imposing injustice upon the innocent.
What might constitute an act of mercy when an individual does it becomes an injustice against the members of the body politic when government employs its sword of “justice” to compel such “mercy.” This amounts to a grotesque misuse of power. Even if well intended, such government action is actually unjust.*** So how does this discussion apply to our present immigration debate? It is advisable to consider the impact of proposed “comprehensive immigration reform” on our fellow Americans. More than the welfare of illegal immigrants is at stake here. And the foremost obligation, legally and morally, of the U.S. government is the welfare of American citizens. The American people too often end up being the forgotten victims of “comprehensive immigration reform.” That is certainly the case were the CIR ASAP Act or the Schumer-Reid-Graham proposal to be enacted. The goals of those bills are principally granting legal status to nearly all of the estimated 11 million unlawful alien residents, as well as guaranteeing a flood of job competition from foreign workers every year for the foreseeable future. The supposed penalties such schemes would impose on illegal aliens amount to what the law currently would require: payment of certain fees, undergo a background check, and some modest step toward English acquisition. These sanctions hardly constitute meaningful penalty or punishment. Plainly, the government’s display of “mercy” toward millions of people who willfully broke this nation’s laws forces its own innocent citizens to stomach substantial injustice. Who would “comprehensive immigration reform” hurt?
It would put the most vulnerable Americans at risk — native-born minorities,
Americans with no more than a high school education including dropouts,
legal immigrants,
our teenagers trying to land that first rung on the career ladder,
veterans,
the disabled,
and convicts seeking to amend their lives in society. Before the recession started, native-born youth and those with less education were experiencing extra high unemployment — 11.6 percent for dropouts and 10.6 percent for those with only a high school diploma in the third quarter 2007. Needless to say, their joblessness has worsened. Some 21 million unemployed or underemployed native-born Americans lacked a job or were discouraged from looking for work in the third quarter 2009. “Comprehensive immigration reform” would exacerbate their economic prospects, both by adding many more job competitors to the U.S. labor pool and depressing the wages that U.S. workers could otherwise command. This policy amounts to substituting labor for capital, which runs directly counter to the “American system of manufacture,” based on a tighter labor market and led to the development of a strong middle class. Today, fewer than half of American teens are in the labor force, compared with two-thirds in 1994. Adding more foreign workers who have displaced our teenagers from job opportunities accounts for a large share of this situation. The one-two punch of amnesty and massively more “guestworkers” would further kill summer job opportunities for our teens. The impact of legalizing the 7-8 million illegal aliens in the U.S. workforce and the 11 million total estimated unlawfully resident aliens, plus the untold thousands of foreign workers brought in under the proposed “guestworker” program (lopped on top of the several existing guestworker visa programs) would force Americans who face the toughest job-search circumstances into head-to-head job competition with unimaginable numbers of foreign competitors. It would also drive down their wages. Already, immigration of the scale we have had in recent decades negatively affects U.S. natives’ wages. Scholarly analysis bears this out. For example, Harvard economist George Borjas has attributed immigration with directly reducing yearly average native-born men’s wages by 4 percent, or $1,700, between 1980 and 2000. For native dropouts, immigration’s wage depression was 7.4 percent over the same period. Northeastern University scholars found nearly all the U.S. job growth from 2000 to 2004 was filled by immigrant workers. Consider in detail vulnerable Americans’ employment situation, which was already bleak as of third quarter 2009. I am citing the U-6 unemployment figure, which counts those actively looking but without a job, the underemployed, and people who have stopped looking for full-time employment. U-6 unemployment for native-born high school dropouts: 32.4 percent. U-6 unemployment for native-born blacks 18-29 years old with a high school diploma only: 39.8 percent. U-6 unemployment for native-born blacks who dropped out of school: 42.2 percent. U-6 unemployment for native-born Latinos without a high school diploma: 35.6 percent. U-6 unemployment for native-born Latinos 18-29 years old with only a diploma: 33.9 percent. We do not have a labor shortage. Further, the wages of the least educated and less skilled fellow Americans have been declining for decades, beginning well before the current recession. Male high school dropouts have seen hourly wages fall 22 percent between 1979 and 2007, for example. Immigrants in general and illegal aliens in particular tend to fall into the lower end of the job scale, because of their low education and skills levels. With figures like those above, it would seem impossible to justify either amnesty or a generous guestworker program. To do both would be unconscionable, at least from a biblically informed perspective. The most vulnerable of our national community would see 7-8 million jobs currently held by illegal aliens permanently tied up and those jobs foreclosed to jobless Americans. And “comprehensive immigration reform” would vastly increase the number of working-age immigrants legally brought into the country year after year into the future. Another set of consequences of “comprehensive immigration reform” must also be carefully and fully considered. Those include the impact of legalizing 11 million illegal aliens on America’s dire fiscal crisis. Beneficiaries of amnesty would qualify for many public programs from which they currently are disqualified on account of their unlawful presence. Those programs include welfare, health care, the earned income tax credit, and entitlement programs. Because illegal aliens are predominately less educated and unskilled, they would disproportionately participate in these programs and collect far more in benefits than they would ever contribute in taxes. This means native-born American taxpayers would effectively be required to subsidize foreign-born public program participation, on an even larger scale. It also means enriching former illegal aliens at the expense of lawful immigrants who played by the rules. Consider the fiscal impact of “comprehensive immigration reform” on just one entitlement program, Medicaid. While illegal aliens are excluded from Medicaid, many would in all likelihood become eligible when they gained legal immigration status under amnesty. Under the recently enacted health reform, Medicaid is expanded substantially. In 2014, those with incomes up to 133 percent of the official poverty level will qualify for Medicaid. Analysis I have just completed indicates that 3.1 million current illegal aliens would have incomes that qualify them for Medicaid. They would add an extra $8.1 billion annually to the cost of the Medicaid program. In the budget window the Congressional Budget Office used for estimating health reform’s costs, amnesty would cost taxpayers another $48.6 billion during the years 2014-2019. The entire fiscal impact of amnesty and massively expanded immigration must be factored into the consideration of any immigration legislation. Rather than add to the nation’s unsustainable fiscal obligations through immigration, it would be more fiscally responsible to reduce immigration and forego legalization. In short, what “comprehensive immigration reform” would do unto “the least of these” fellow Americans hardly ranks as ethical treatment. *** In closing, it would be unwise to misapply biblical principles in any public policy area. This is true with respect to immigration. Immigration is one of those issues in which Scripture does not detail a normative public policy. This issue differs from clear-cut biblical precepts such as prohibiting murder, stealing, or perjury. Thus, we have to consider which biblical principles do appropriately apply, carefully assess the situation at hand, consider this nation’s experience and unique characteristics, judiciously estimate the impact of various policy options, and then exercise prudential judgment. For biblical principles to inform our immigration policy, we must tread carefully. There is no proof text that justifies or mandates broad legalization, visas for certain countries or groups or skill levels, country quotas, or anything like that. Migration, where it comes up in Scripture, is incidental. The most precise teachings relate to fair treatment of resident aliens. Those who assert a biblical imperative for enacting “comprehensive immigration reform” or a specific bill are skating on thin ice. Thinking prudentially, we know that in 1986, we tried immigration reform that looked largely the same as today’s proposals: amnesty with border enforcement and employer sanctions. Some 3 million illegal aliens were legalized, including a number suspected of doing so fraudulently. Within a decade, the illegal population had mushroomed to three times the 1986 amnesty level. The supposed enforcement measures failed to secure the border or shut down the jobs magnet, because of fundamental flaws that guaranteed failure. The most vulnerable Americans have suffered the consequences most severely. Then as now, what passed for “enforcement” mainly amounted to inputs — hire this many more border officers, etc. — and completely ignored requiring results — curb illegal entry to near zero, reduce visa overstays to near zero, achieve near zero attempted re-entries by those previously removed or excluded, reduce to near zero the number of illegal aliens holding American jobs, etc. Pursuing essentially the same failed “solution” hardly measures up to prudence. Today’s proposals punish our fellow Americans through forced “compassion” they cannot afford. Perhaps the most ethical thing Congress could do is to suspend most immigration, at least until unemployment rates return to prerecession levels.

Evangelical Leadership’s Betrayal Of Grassroots On Immigration Increasing

A timely post from http://www.vdare.com/ about Evangelical Christian Leaders. This follows this post about the Arizona Legal Defense Fund. This follows this post contrasting Texas and California and this post about the MURDER of ROBERT KRENTZ, who the protestors and boycotters won't give a solution for, but will call Americans racist for trying to prevent another MURDER, and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Memo From Middle America (Formerly Known As Memo From Mexico),
By Allan Wall
Evangelical Leadership’s Betrayal Of Grassroots On Immigration Increasing
I recently criticized the leadership of the Association of Evangelicals [NAE], which claims to represent 40 denominations with memberships totaling 30 million, for coming out strongly for amnesty.
As an evangelical Christian myself, I absolutely don’t see any conflict between my faith and working for a sane immigration policy for my country.
Evangelical Christians could be key allies in the fight against open borders. They comprise approximately one quarter of the U.S. electorate. Polling indicates that most evangelicals are on our side. When compared to mainline Protestants, Catholics and Jews, evangelicals had the highest percentage of respondents who believe that (1) the quantity of immigrants, illegal and legal, is too high; (2) illegal immigration is caused by lack of enforcement, (3) we have enough Americans who can do our labor, (4) amnesty for illegals is not the answer, (4) attrition through enforcement a good strategy, and (5) enforcing the law is better than amnesty. [Religious Leaders vs. Members: An Examination of Contrasting Views on Immigration, Steven S. Camarota, CIS, December 2009].
Already, according to Numbers USA’s Roy Beck, approximately one-third of his members are evangelicals.
Nevertheless, although the evangelical rank and file supports immigration sanity, just as with so many of our society’s institutions the evangelical leadership is not reliable. I’ve recently seen three further outbreaks:
The NAE has now teamed up with a group calling itself the "Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform."
(Here,, Mark Krikorian questions how conservative they are).
This coalition held a meeting on Capitol Hill on July 9th.In attendance were NAE president Leith Anderson, Richard Land (more on him later) and of course, Samuel Rodriguez, an Evangelical Hispanic activist of whom I’ve written before.
Rodriguez proclaimed that
"Today’s Tea Party may very well spell tomorrow’s conservative funeral, unless that tea is accompanied by something that enriches any meal. Chips and salsa"
Rodriguez threatened the GOP:
"Republicans [and] conservatives probably have the most to lose, ‘The Grand Old Party stands on the brink of repeating history by completing a wall, not between Mexico and the United States but between Hispanic Americans and the conservative movement…The “family values party” is alienating the most pro-life, pro-family constituency in America. So is this the party of Reagan and Lincoln, or the party of nativists and conservatives attempting to conserve a color rather than an idea?"
Is this guy hostile, or what?
Remember, the fact that the NAE leadership pushes for amnesty doesn’t mean that all 30 million members of NAE-affiliated churches do.
You can send NAE president Leith Anderson (photo here ) a polite email here .
The Southern Baptist Convention is the county’s largest Protestant denomination. Yet how many Southern Baptists in the pews know what Richard Land is doing in their name?
Dr. Richard Land is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and has been so since 1988. Given what he’s been involved in lately, Baptists might wonder if it’s time he step down.
National Public Radio just ran a little puff piece/interview of Dr. Land, entitled Conservative Southern Baptists Wade Into Immigration Debate [NPR, July 11, 2010]
Just read the first paragraph and you’ll see where he’s headed:
"Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, plans to address a gathering of Hispanic Baptists this weekend. Land will tell the group that his denomination supports a path to U.S. Citizenship for illegal immigrants, a message that may test member loyalty within the conservative denomination. Richard Land says his message may not be popular, but needs to be said. "
Here are a few low points from the interview:
On illegal aliens:
"We've got 12 to 17 million people who are here illegally who have, you know, I think it's important to note, they broke the law in order to come here and work. Whereas our homegrown criminals tend to break the law so they don't have to work. "
On illegal aliens being law-abiding:
"The vast majority of these people are law abiding citizens once they've gotten here. They've worked hard. It's not realistic that we're going to round them up and send them home….I don't think it's realistic, or I don't think it's the way you treat people either."
On amnesty:
"I think that we need to have a pathway, an earned pathway to legal status or citizenship, whichever they prefer."
(Links added).
Just a few days earlier, NPR had run another article about Land: GOP Faces Internal Divide on Changes to Immigration, Mara Liasson, NPR, July 7, 2010
Part of Land’s argument: conservatives need Hispanic voters. (Apparently he has never heard of the Sailer Strategy—or doesn’t want to). According to Land:
"I've had some of them appeal to me. They say, 'Richard, you're going to divide the conservative coalition.' And I said, 'Well, I may divide the old conservative coalition, but I'm not going to divide the new one. If the new conservative coalition is going to be a governing coalition, it's going to have to have a significant number of Hispanics in it, that's dictated by demographics, and you don't get large numbers of Hispanics to support you when you're engaged in anti-Hispanic immigration rhetoric."
Richard Land, in other words, is cheering on the Hispanicization of America and condemns anybody who stands against it.
I never see any concern of Dr. Land for Americans, including ordinary Southern Baptists, who are harmed by illegal and legal immigration.
Dr. Land needs a lot of education and exhortation to help him understand what is really going on in our country and what needs to be done. I encourage our Southern Baptist (and other) readers to contact Dr. Land and politely attempt to educate him. You can email him here. You can leave him a voicemail (toll free) at 1-888-324-8456, Monday through Friday.
You can even, call Richard Land during his live weekly radio show, thus educating Land and his listeners at the same time. The show is on from noon to 3 p.m., Eastern Time. The toll free number is 1-888-324-8456.
Also, here is the general contact form for the Southern Baptist denomination. You can write it also.
In the midst of all this, another evangelical group has weighed in with a statement on immigration which actually sounds reasonable—until you take a closer look: The U.S. Pastor Council.
The U.S. Pastor Council’s statement has been favorably written up in WorldNetDaily:
"A new declaration on immigration already backed by hundreds of pastors who lead tens of thousands of people urges the government to secure the national borders as the first part of any reform strategy."
Pastors Seek to ‘Secure our National Borders’, (Bob Unruh, World Net Daily, July 4th, 2010):
In fact, one of the drafters of this document is one Dave Welch, who writes a column for WorldNetDaily (see here).
Dave Welch of the US Pastor Council is not to be confused with Dave Welch the British poker player. The latter Dave Welch is presumably gambling with his own money. The former Dave Welch is gambling with the future of his country in the name of religion—or something.
The Pastors’ Declaration on Border Security and Immigration Reform puts forth a three point plan.
Step One sounds good, it’s "Secure our National Borders First":
"It is the first business of our government to protect the safety and welfare of citizens against ‘enemies foreign and domestic.’ The well established fact that drug cartels, gang members, other criminal elements and now Middle Eastern operatives linked to Islamic terrorism are freely moving across our southern border has created an urgent national security crisis."
The Declaration follows with the Action Needed":
"All borders, with specific priority to the southern border of the United States, must be secured as soon as possible using whatever means necessary to stop all entry from points other than regulated crossing stations. Fences, adequately armed U.S. military presence, electronic surveillance, increased Border Patrol forces, full enforcement of all existing immigration laws and policy changes protecting citizens as well as law enforcement from persecution, prosecution or lawsuits when acting to protect life and property are examples of first steps that need to be implemented."
Sounds great! But…it’s only Step One.
Step Two is "Reform the Immigration System". And here the US Pastor Council goes completely off the rails:
"The process of entering the country legally is fraught with red tape, fraud, delays, unacceptable costs, unrealistically low quotas and inhumane treatment for many if not most people who desire to emigrate to the U.S. temporarily for education or work, or permanently as citizens. This system needs to be reformed so people legitimately seeking temporary or permanent residency in this country are treated with dignity and respect."
"Unrealistically low quotas"? We are already taking in more legal immigrants than any other country. But it’s never enough, is it?
What the pastors are calling for is an increase in legal immigration—which we definitely don’t need.
And then there’s Step Three—"Implement a just process to legal status for specified illegal immigrants".
It’s A-M-N-E-S-T-Y—under yet another euphemism.
And the conclusion to the Declaration sounds downright totalitarian:
"We the undersigned pastors declare our commitment to using our voice and influence in every way possible to support these principles. We will also publicly hold accountable those who choose to remain silent, who are divisive for purely political purposes, or who act in opposition to these principles."
“Publicly hold accountable those who choose to remain silent”?
“Who are divisive for purely political purposes”?
“Who act in opposition to these principles”?
They talking to us?
The US Pastor Council needs help and guidance also. Here is a list of supporting pastors. If you think your pastor is on the list, look him up and contact him.
Also, you can contact the Pastors’ Council here and here .
And don’t neglect to write to Dave Welch and educate him on why amnesty is a bad idea which will encourage more illegal immigration and why we need to reduce—not increase—legal immigration.
We also need to educate many of our local clergy. Too many confuse pious noises and feeling good about themselves with doing the right thing.
We need to straighten them out.
Point out that true Christian charity is helping people in the name of Christ, with our own freely-given resources—not taking taxpayers’ money to spend on illegal aliens who ought to be in their own country.
We must not allow confused leaders like Leith Anderson, Richard Land and Dave Welch to use our church offerings to destroy our country.
American citizen Allan Wall (email him) recently moved back to the U.S.A. after many years residing in Mexico. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.

Anti-Amnesty Christians Are Like Those Who Supported Slavery & Segregation? Religious Leaders Say Amnesty Morally Necessary

An interesting post from http://www.numbersusa.com/ about the religious dimension in immigration. This follows this post about E-Verify and this post about the MURDER of ROBERT KRENTZ, who the protestors and boycotters won't give a solution for, but will call Americans racist for trying to prevent another MURDER, and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Anti-Amnesty Christians Are Like Those Who Supported Slavery & Segregation? Religious Leaders Say Amnesty Morally Necessary

By Roy Beck, - posted on NumbersUSA

A Brookings Institute conference today about the near unanimity of the nation's religious leaders in favor of amnesty and more foreign workers cast the debate in stark moral absolutes.
The Christian leaders repeatedly compared the fight for legalization of illegal aliens to the battles against slavery and segregation and pledged to convert and mobilize their members in the pews to force a vote on "comprehensive immigration reform."
ARIZONA THE NEW SELMA?
Arizona has become this generation's Selma.
-- Jim Wallis, head of the evangelical Sojourners movement
Wallis was referring to the brutal attempts of police and government in Selma, Alabama in the 1960s to stop civil rights marchers from trying to end racial segregation.
This has become a common theme as top leaders of the Southern Baptists, Lutherans, Jews, Methodists, Assemblies of God, Catholics, Presbyterians and the broad independent evangelical community have locked arms in a march for massive increases in immigration and foreign labor importation into the United States.
To Wallis and many others, the overwhelming majority of Christians who, polls show, support Arizona's recent law cracking down on immigration are the equivalent of the minority of Americans who supported racist, cruel laws that denied Black Americans many of their most basic rights as U.S. citizens. To these Christian leaders, a foreign national who breaks our immigration laws immediately becomes a victim of an oppressive U.S. system and is entitled to all the rights and privileges of a native-born citizen or naturalized immigrant.
Rev. Sam Rodriguez, head of the nation's largest coalition of Hispanic clergy, compared himself and the other pro-amnesty religious leaders to two of recent history's great Christian champions against inhumanity:
We are committed to oppose xenophobia and nativism (as we speak) in the voice of Martin Luther King and William Wilberforce.
-- Rev. Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
Wilberforce was the great evangelical and member of British Parliament who spent his career eventually ending the British slave trade.
GIDDY OVER AMNESTY SUPPORT BY SOUTHERN BAPTIST & EVANGELICAL LEADERS
Catholic and liberal Protestant leaders have become almost giddy about the fact that they are now joined by top leaders of the nation's powerful and growing evangelical community and of the largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.
Just last week, eight of them met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and with White House staff calling on them to not give up on "comprehensive immigration reform" but to bring the amnesty to a vote this year.
The Rev. Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptists' national public policy commission, described his vision of a moral outcome by insisting that borders first be totally secured and then:
We move forward with a period of grace, where people can come forward and register and begin a pathway . . . (to) earned, legal status."
-- Rev. Richard Land, national Southern Baptist leader, quoted by Baptist Press
Rev. Land is vehement that it is not an amnesty to give permanent legal residency and permanent work permits to foreigners who broke immigration laws to illegally reside in this country and to illegally hold a job. Asked if illegal aliens have committed a crime, he responded:
Most of the people in my constituency (Southern Baptists) would say, 'Yes, they've broken the law, and there need to be penalties for that.' The question is: What are the panalties? And we would argue that there needs to be an earned pathway to legal status that would include paying a fine, agreeing to come forward and register and undergo a background check, and to start taking English classes."
-- Rev. Richard Land, national Southern Baptist leader, quoted by Baptist Press
To Rev. Rodriguez, making illegal aliens go home would be cruel and unusual punishment. The punishment for breaking immigration laws should be a fine:
Mass deportations are not the answer. The punishment should fit the crime.
-- Rev. Rodriguez, national evangelical Hispanic leader
Remember the late Jerry Falwell of Liberty University? Remember how he was often considered a leader of the most right-wing part of the Christian community? Well, Matthew Staver from Liberty University's Law School was one of the leaders imploring Nancy Pelosi to bring the amnesty up for a vote this year.
What does Staver think about making immigration lawbreakers go home?
Not only is it not practical, it's not moral. And I don't believe that's biblical either."
-- Matthew Staver of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, quoted by Baptist Press
UNPRECEDENTED UNITY AMONG RELIGIOUS LEADERS FOR A SOCIAL CHANGE
Perhaps never in U.S. history has the leadership of nearly all faith groups united behind a single major social change -- until the current near unanimity in favor of comprehensive immigration reform (amnesty for illegal aliens and increases in future foreign labor), speakers at Brookings indicated.
And I can't think of another case like this myself.
Here's what Brookings had to say about it:
Religious leaders have demonstrated a remarkable degree of unity across theological, denominational, and ideological lines for comprehensive immigration reform.
Religious groups have organized marches, prayer vigils and postcard campaigns to pressure the U.S. Congress to take up immigration reform.
Largely because of the activism of these religious groups, immigration has remained on a legislative agenda crowded with other pressing domestic concerns.
-- Brookings Institute
Despite the general attitude of politicians in Congress and the White House that passing an amnesty is not possible this election year, the religious leaders pledged to do all they can to break the stalemate and force a vote.
If anybody can do this, it will be a bi-partisan effort by the faith community.
-- Rev. Wallis
NOT FOR OPEN BORDERS . . . BUT NOT REALLY FOR ANY ENFORCEMENT OR LIMITS EITHER
Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the nation's Episcopal Churches, was challenged about how religious leaders' opposition to the nation's immigration laws could appeal to their constituents who, polls show, are very much committed to concepts of rule of law,
The role of the prophetic tradition is to challenge laws and structures that appear to be unjust. . . . We are meant to see every human being as our neighbor.
-- Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church
The implication seemed to be that neighbors don't let neighbors get punished for breaking immigration laws.
All the leaders insisted that they don't believe in open borders. But every form of enforcement that was mentioned was opposed by the Brookings religious leaders.
Even the greatly reduced enforcement level under the Obama Administration is unacceptable:
Yes, it is time for Christian disobedience (against the enforcement of immigration laws).
-- Rev. Wallis
What they mean by NOT open borders is that they would definitely stop people who arrived carrying a bomb. But if they arrived at the border with a letter from a U.S. employer promising a job, they should be let in, without limit apparently.
We are trying to replace illegal behavior with legal avenues. If you provide legal visas, the Border Patrol will go after criminal elements. . . . Part of the solution is to create a system where everybody is legal and on the same playing field.
-- Kevin Appleby, spokeman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
This religious idea basically is that foreigners who can get a job in the U.S. should be allowed to become an immigrant and eventually a citizen. This, by the way, is the idea of Steve Forbes, too. Globalize the U.S. labor market so that anybody in the world can come in to compete for a job with U.S. citizens -- that's the idea.
Appleby did say that the system should be set up so that U.S. citizens get first crack at a job. But I've never heard a pro-amnesty religious leader ever describe how that would happen.
The problem, agreed Bishop Schori, is that we just don't provide enough green cards to foreign workers:
We encourage people to come here from an economic perspective but we don't provide them the means to come legally.
-- Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church
DISTORTING ARIZONA LAW FOR RHETORICAL ADVANTAGE
One thing that was pretty apparent to me today is that the religious leaders are far more radical than almost any of the Democrats in Congress in their opposition to real enforcement and to any real limits on immigration.
The religious leaders gave a sort of comic book description of the Arizona law.
The Presiding Episcopal Bishop indicated that some of her underling bishops will be fearful of being threatened by Arizona police:
Our bishops will meet in September in Arizona. It has been planned a few years. We will express solidarity with the Latino community. A number of our bishops are temporary sojourners themselves. Members of our group will be at some hazard at having to present identification themselves while there.
-- Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church
Rev. Wallis repeated as truth the rumor that the Arizona law will make criminals out of church workers who provide food, clothing and other material help to illegal aliens.
JUST HOW EVIL DO THEIR LEADERS THINK THE CHRISTIANS IN THE PEWS ARE?
The Brookings speakers were challenged a little about just how much influence the religious leaders have when polls show such largescale support of the their membership for the Arizona law.
We do need to do a better job reaching those middle classes who aren't sure and need an answer to their question, 'What part of illegal don't you understand.'
-- Kevin Appleby, spokesman of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
The reality is when people are threatened they do ugly things and that is what is happening in Arizona.
-- Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church
A similar question is how could Christians in this nation have supported slavery and segregation so long?
There is a disconnect between pulpit and pew. The majority of faith leaders support comprehensive immigration reform. But the pew is still disconnected. Pews still listen to cable news. We have some work to do.
-- Rev. Sam Rodriguez, Board of Directors, National Association of Evangelicals
In the end, national religious leaders from every part of the theological spectrum have paraded through Washington in the last few weeks both claiming that they speak for the majority of their faith groups' members and also that too many of their members are part of the evil thread in America that protected slavery, that protected segregation and that now protects enforcement of immigration laws.
Not a word from the religious leaders today about the 25 million Americans who want a full-time job and can't find one. You would never know listening to the national religious leaders that anybody other than illegal aliens are "the least of these" that Jesus admonished his followers to care for. You would never know that there is a giant Black and Hispanic American underclass that competes directly for jobs and services with the illegal population.
LOOK OUT -- PRO-AMNESTY SERMONS ARE COMING YOUR WAY
My sense listening to the leaders today is that they are cornucopians -- Christian utopians who can't be bothered with any concept of limits, of rationing or of the need to prioritize anything. Their idea is that one can show mercy to millions of illegal aliens and not commit injustice against millions of America's most vulnerable and poor.
For all their bravura about forcing an amnesty vote in Congress, they sound disappointed that more of their members aren't following them. A Ford Foundation-supported poll found that only one out of four Christians has heard immigration preached from the pulpit.
It sounds like the pro-amnesty champions hope to persuade a lot more preachers to do their job and convince the people in the pews that they'd better start pushing amnesty or risk being lumped in with segregationists and slave owners.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA (and lifelong churchgoer)
NumbersUSA's blogs are copyrighted and may be republished or reposted only if they are copied in their entirety, including this paragraph, and provide proper credit to NumbersUSA. NumbersUSA bears no responsibility for where our blogs may be republished or reposted. Views and opinions expressed in blogs on this website are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect official policies of NumbersUSA.
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Religion Survey

An interesting post from www.numbersusa.com about religious views and immigration. Read the article and connect to the link in to fill out the survey. For more interesting articles like this click here.


The Pews Fight Back

Last week, we told you about a new Zogby poll that revealed the differences between church leaders and the people sitting in the pews. (Watch Roy's appearance on Fox & Friends) Well, NumbersUSA Members are fighting back, and in the last three days, you've sent 129,989 faxes to Members of Congress telling them how you feel.
But on Thursday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops upped the ante, launching a campaign urging Congress to pass a mass amnesty bill. The campaign includes a series of websites and the sending of 1.5 million post cards to congregations hoping parishioners will sign them. So despite your tremendous response to the poll this week, the fight has just begun.
“We remain committed to moving immigration reform as soon as possible,” Bishop and chairman of the USCCB John C. Webster said. “We hope to make sure that our federal legislators are committed to that goal as well.”
As the Zogby poll pointed out, there is a huge disconnect between you and the leaders of your various denominations. The best thing you can do is explain to your clergy your concerns that a mass amnesty and high immigration numbers would have on 15 million unemployed Americans. If you haven't already done so, complete our short religion survey, and then check your Action Board for specific faxes you can send.

Most Jews & Christians oppose more foreign workers‏

An interesting post from www.numbersusa.com about how some religious leaders oppose the views of their congregation, for more interesting articles like this click here.


Zogby poll finds most religious Americans at odds with religious leaders -- SEND THESE FAXES?

THIS IS THE SURVEY WE'VE BEEN SEEKING FOR A LONG TIME! The great news is that a gigantic Zogby poll has found that huge majorities of each of four religious groups -- Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants and born-again Protestants -- agree with you on immigration. . . . . . . even though nearly every national religious agency and leader who is lobbying on immigration is calling for more foreign workers.

ACTION: If you identify with one of these four groups, please click the link, choose and modify a text and send the fax to your Members of Congress.
Send CATHOLIC Faxes
Send JEWISH Faxes
Send MAINLINE PROTESTANT Faxes (Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, UCC, Disciples, etc.
Send BORN-AGAIN PROTESTANT Faxes (Evangelicals, Baptists, Pentecostals, etc.)
Please be patient when you click, as these faxes are a little sluggish to appear on your screen. Some of you don't fit any of these groups, which is fine. But we need people who CAN send faxes within these groups because they were the ones measured by Zogby and now have a powerful message to tell Congress. (All but a couple dozen Members of Congress are affiliated with one of these religious groupings.) We really need the local offices of Congress to hear the views from the pews to counteract aggressive lobbying by religious leaders to increase the number of immigrants to compete with 15 million unemployed Americans. Zogby found that only 7-16% of the religious groups agreed with their national religous leaders that more foreign workers are needed. Let's make sure that all Members of Congress know that the religious leader/lobbyists speak for almost nobody in their membership when they urge higher immigration. Also, I hope you will study my blog about this poll, print it out and pass it around so others can become aware that most Jews and Christians reject their leaders' positions on immigration.
BACKGROUND: Sunday, I was invited onto Fox & Friends (the national TV morning show) to talk about the big difference between what most Catholics think about immigration and what the national Catholic leaders are promoting. Watch an excerpt here. Although Fox wanted to focus on Catholics, the problem is in most denominations: This month, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is asking priests to rally their congregations in post-card campaigns in favor of "comprehensive immigration reform." They will join a post-card campaign that has already been underway locally in national Jewish organizations and in the local congregations of the United Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, United Church of Christ, Disciples, Quaker, Mennonite and Episcopal denominations. And the National Association of Evangelicals is aggressively trying to convince Congress that overwhelming majorities of more conservative Christians are endorsing increases in immigration and foreign labor. The post cards apparently will be primarily delivered to the local offices of U.S. Senators and Representatives. It is up to you to give an entirely different -- and more accurate -- perception of religious adherents. The Zogby poll was probably the largest ever conducted on immigration among religious adherents. They were asked: "Which of these opinions best reflects your view on immigration and jobs that require relatively little education? Statement A: We need to allow more immigrants into the country to fill these jobs because there arent enough Americans willing or able to do them. (This is the position of most Jewish and Christian lobbyists but is supported by only 12% of Catholics, 10% of mainline Protestants, 7% of born-again Protestants and 16% of Jews.) Statement B: There are plenty of Americans already here to do these jobs, if employers cant find workers they should pay more and treat workers better. (This is the overwhelming favorite, of 69% of Catholics, 73% of mainline Protestants, 75% of born-again Protestants and 61% of Jews.) The only religious voices on immigration being heard by Congress are the voices of the 7-16% minority. It is up to you to make the 61-75% majority religious opinion heard loud and clear.