{"id":553,"date":"2007-04-04T13:38:33","date_gmt":"2007-04-04T21:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=542"},"modified":"2007-04-04T13:38:33","modified_gmt":"2007-04-04T21:38:33","slug":"immigration-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2007\/04\/04\/immigration-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just received the following in an email from Sojourners \/ Call to Renewal<\/a>. I agree with it 100%. In fact, I’m very excited about something I’ve just gotten involved in to help poor immigrant families in New York City. I can’t say yet exactly what it is, because the initiative hasn’t yet launched publicly. It will be something that is outside my comfort zone a bit. However, over the new year’s break I prayed that God would give me a specific ministry to the poor in which I could use my skills and position as a law professor, and a chance to be on the policy committee of this immigration initiative just sort of came to me.<\/p>\n

From Call to Renewal:<\/p>\n

With Congress on the verge of rewriting our nation’s immigration laws, too many of the loudest voices on the issue are politicians and pundits who seek to scapegoat immigrant workers , falsely blaming them for many of our nation’s social and economic problems.<\/p>\n

As Christians called by scripture to welcome and care for the strangers among us, we must seize this moment and raise our voices in a debate that is too often tainted by prejudice and fear.<\/p>\n

Tell your representative to fix our broken immigration system with reform that is fair and compassionate.<\/p>\n

From the law in Leviticus to the words of Jesus, our faith is very clear about our obligations to the “strangers” and “aliens” in our midst . That’s why Christian leaders from across the theological and political spectrum are coming together to support immigration reform that lives up to our moral and theological principles.<\/p>\n

It is entirely possible to protect our borders while establishing a viable, humane, and realistic immigration system, one that is consistent with our American values and increases national security while protecting the livelihood of Americans.<\/p>\n

But we must act now in order for our voices to be heard – legislation has just been introduced in the House of Representatives, and we have a very short window in which to act.<\/p>\n

Stand up for comprehensive immigration reform by sending a message to Congress today.<\/p>\n

Specifically, we must demand that any immigration legislation includes:<\/p>\n

Border enforcement and protection initiatives that are consistent with humanitarian values;
\nReforms in our family-based immigration system that help to safely reunite separated families;
\nAn opportunity for all immigrant workers and their families already in the U.S. to come out of the shadows to pursue an earned legal status, leading up to citizenship; and
\nA viable guest worker program that creates avenues for workers and their families to enter our country and work in a safe, legal, and orderly manner.
\nTell Congress: immigration reform must be fair and compassionate.<\/p>\n

With so many immigrant families living in poverty, we must acknowledge that discussion of immigration cannot be separated from our understanding of poverty – and is thus central to achieving the vision for overcoming poverty found in Sojourners\/Call to Renewal’s Covenant for a New America.<\/p>\n

That’s why we’re hard at work advocating for comprehensive immigration reform – organizing a broad coalition of Christian leaders to raise up a prophetic voice in the media on this important issue, and developing a toolkit for grassroots advocacy.<\/p>\n

I hope you’ll join us as we seek to respond to Jesus’ words: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just received the following in an email from Sojourners \/ Call to Renewal. I agree with it 100%. In fact, I’m very excited about something I’ve just gotten involved in to help poor immigrant families in New York City. I can’t say yet exactly what it is, because the initiative hasn’t yet launched publicly. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice","category-law-and-policy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-8V","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}