Evangelicals push Congress for immigration changes

[underpants]

Source: USA Today

Leaders from a wide-ranging group of evangelical organizations -- from Focus on the Family to the Southern Baptist Convention to the National Latino Evangelical Association -- came together in Washington to push for a revamped immigration system that provides a path to citizenship for some of the country's 11 million illegal immigrants

The creation of the group comes amid continued inaction by Congress on immigration. The DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to some illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children and have completed either some college or served in the military, passed the House of Representatives in 2010, but failed in the Senate. Other attempts at immigration changes have gone nowhere.

The issue has been key for Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney as both try to cater to the ever-growing Hispanic electorate. Obama pushed for the DREAM Act and has called on Congress to tackle a comprehensive immigration package. Romney said he would veto the current version of the DREAM Act, but would support a version strictly for illegal immigrants who serve in the military.

The groups are starting out by focusing person-to-person outreach and media buys in Colorado and Florida -- two states they believe are critical to the November election, and have large numbers of evangelicals.

Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2012/06/immigration-evangelical-obama-romney-election-/1

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The last paragraph above is the last paragraph in the article. I was only slightly skeptical until I read that paragraph. As much as I would love to support this it seems like a political ploy by the Focus on Family types to appeal to the Latino population. Basically they become a ground game for Romney.

[RKP5637]

1. Yep, they want to use them as tools. Disgusting. As usual, manipulation in the

name of god. Wake up Americans.

[ret5hd]

3. god...or gold?

[RKP5637]

6. Yep, Gold, they're growing "Religion, Inc."

[Rozlee]

2. It's a cookbook.

[tularetom]

4. Coincidentally the farmers are bitching about the scarcity of farm workers

http://www.modbee.com/2012/06/10/2236284/growers-struggle-with-farmworker.html

Think there's a connection?

[underpants]

7. That reminds me of a story from just after 9/11

I think it was on ABC News.

A Republican congressman hears about checkpoints on the border that are left unmanned. He demands that Immigration starts stopping the trucks going across the border and look for "illegals" and TERRORISTS (who generally sneak into the country by landing at La Guardia). So they start stopping trucks. Low and behold it is Coke and Pepsi and regular type industry whose drivers are sneaking "illegals" into the country.

The Western Growers Association suddenly is short handed picking things like (this was in the report) lettuce. It takes something like 50 workers (maybe 150) to quickly pick an acre of lettuce. The WGA lobbies ($$$) to lawmakers in DC and.......*POOF* away go the manned checkpoints.

[pipoman]

5. The percentage of 1st generation Mexican

immigrants who identify themselves as Christians has to be vastly higher than the native population..Churches are shrinking. There are many Mexican clergy in the US. It should be no surprise that the Christian community would support immigration reform...a likely divide between the Christian right and the rest of the right.

[lupulin]

8. Would they be less Christian if they were not in the US?

[pipoman]

10. Are you suggesting deporting them?

[lupulin]

12. I am questioning

why the focus of a church should be on the geographical location of it's members rather than on their faith and spiritual needs.

I also wonder what metric we should use to determine when an institution of faith should be permitted to engage in political issues and when it should not. It seems there are times when there is mass approval of a church's championing of a cause and there are other times when churches are overwhelmingly told to keep their opinions to themselves.

[pipoman]

14. Maybe if all geographic locations were equal,

they're not. Poverty, healthcare, and jobs make a difference in the lives of these people. You obviously don't understand the mission of most churches. This isn't a political issue, it is a humanitarian issue.

[XemaSab]

9. Or they might be sincere...

RESOLVED, That we urge the federal government to enforce all immigration laws, including the laws directed at employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants or who are unjustly paying these immigrants substandard wages or subjecting them to conditions that are contrary to the labor laws of our country; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we urge citizen Christians to follow the biblical principle of caring for the foreigners among us (Deuteronomy 24:17-22) and the command of Christ to be a neighbor to those in need of assistance (Luke 10:30-37), regardless of their racial or ethnic background, country of origin, or legal status; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we encourage Christian churches to act redemptively and reach out to meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of all immigrants, to start English classes on a massive scale, and to encourage them toward the path of legal status and/or citizenship; and be it finally

RESOLVED, That we encourage all Southern Baptists to make the most of the tremendous opportunity for evangelism and join our Master on His mission to seek and save those who are lost (Luke 19:10) among the immigrant population to the end that these individuals might become both legal residents of the United States and loyal citizens of the Kingdom of God.

http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=1157

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are Baptists, no?

[Bette Noir]

11. It'd be rude to evangelize Catholic immigrants to make them Baptist.

[bluestateguy]

13. They know they will soon be outvoted on gay marriage

So they want to bring in conservative Catholics who will get citizenship and then vote away gay people's civil rights in referendums.

We're not fooled.