Evangelicals' full-page ad in D.C. will call for immigration reformGalen Carey, director of government affairs for the National Evangelical Association, tells Yahoo! News the organization is seeking to rally support for comprehensive immigration reform. The campaign begins with a full-page ad Thursday in Roll Call, a Washington newspaper that covers Congress.
"What we say is: There does need to be some workable system that's put in place to address the situation of people that are already here," Carey said.
The association, which includes members from 40 evangelical denominations, reached consensus on the issue of immigration reform in 2009 — almost two years after President George W. Bush's failed attempts to reform immigration — by focusing on the biblical material that supports immigration. (The group took no official stand on the issue during the last congressional debate.) The group's 2009 resolution on immigration includes several paragraphs citing scriptural authority:
"Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the families of his sons turned to Egypt in search of food," it says. "Joseph, Naomi, Ruth, Daniel and his friends, Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther all lived in foreign lands. In the New Testament, Joseph and Mary fled with Jesus to escape Herod's anger and became refugees in Egypt."
The 2009 resolution calls for a path to citizenship for immigrants who are in the country illegally but "who desire to embrace the responsibilities and privileges that accompany citizenship."
Thursday's ad, Carey said, calls for reform that "establishes a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100511/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1994 Welcome in Arizona? Probably not....