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Thinking About Immigration: reflections from a student leader, pt. 1

A New Wine student leader has been reflecting on immigration reform. He began the series by asking “What do you think we should do as Christians regarding immigration reform?”  He opens the blog,

Emma Lazarus, famous Jewish-American poet, most widely known for her poem “The New Colossus” that is imprinted on the pedestal which the Statue of Liberty stands. Here are the most famous lines:

“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she/With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore./Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,/I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

This is definitely not the sentiment that modern-day rhetoric on immigration carries. Self-preservation, ethnic egocentrism, and economic concerns all tied to the platform of American patriotism make even the topic of legal immigration a hot current event.

Continue reading…

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Thinking About Immigration: should a felony mean deportation?

Immigration Reformation speaker, Lisa Sharon Harper, pens a story of an undocumented immigrant convicted of two felonies. This story sounds like a clear-cut case of “send him packing!”, but Harper complicates such a response by sharing this young man’s history.

Five year-old Tony Amorim sat with his dad in a van in Danbury, Conn., in 1989.

“Do you want to come with me,” his father asked him, “or do you want to stay with your mother?”

Tony loved them both, but the boy couldn’t imagine living without his father.

“I want to go with you,” Tony answered.

Right then and there Tony’s father drove away and took him to the far-away land of Florida.

Last week, I interviewed Tony, now 28, on the phone. I couldn’t call him directly because he is in Norfolk County Correctional Center awaiting his deportation hearing scheduled for today.

Tony’s voice was tight. He was eager to share his story — his whole story.

Continue reading…

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Thinking About Immigration: I Was A Stranger challenge

In a time when immigration has become a polarizing political issue, most Protestant Christians (91%, according to a 2010 Pew Research Center poll) admit that they do not primarily think about immigrants or immigration through the lens of their Christian faith.

In order to encourage those—both in local churches and in the halls of Congress—who profess to follow Jesus to allow their response to immigration to be infused with biblical values, the Evangelical Immigration Table has invited us to participate in a new initiative called “I Was a Stranger…,” which takes its name directly from Matthew 25:35, where Jesus says that by welcoming a stranger, we may be welcoming him. The focus of the challenge will be on inviting believers to read a short passage of Scripture each day for forty consecutive days that speaks to God’s heart for immigrants and to pray for the immigrants in their community.

We are in the midst of this challenge in the 40 days leading up to Immigration Reformation. Will you join us? Like us on Facebook or join the Immigration Reformation event to receive updates with the daily passages. You can even text  877877 to receive the daily passage on your phone.

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Thinking About Immigration: some guiding principles, pt. 2

Earlier this week, we shared a set of principles for immigration reform developed by a community group in Oregon. Today, we have a similar set of principles developed by an Evangelical group.

The Evangelical Immigration Table is a (big!) group of Evangelical Christian leaders who have developed and signed onto six basic principles for immigration reform. We’d love to know: what do you think of these principles, from a biblical standpoint?

Our national immigration laws have created a moral, economic and political crisis in America. Initiatives to remedy this crisis have led to polarization and name calling in which opponents have misrepresented each other’s positions as open borders and amnesty versus deportations of millions. This false choice has led to an unacceptable political stalemate at the federal level at a tragic human cost.

As evangelical Christian leaders, we call for a bipartisan solution on immigration that:

  • Respects the God-given dignity of every person
  • Protects the unity of the immediate family
  • Respects the rule of law
  • Guarantees secure national borders
  • Ensures fairness to taxpayers
  • Establishes a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents

We urge our nation’s leaders to work together with the American people to pass immigration reform that embodies these key principles and that will make our nation proud.