Methodist Officials Speak on Immigration

United Methodist Bishops, agencies, and churches are aggressively pushing for liberalized U.S. immigration laws. In recent months, Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the Desert Southwest Annual Conference joined a protest against a local Sheriff’s harsh arrests and treatment of illegal immigrants in Phoenix. And the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) organized United Methodist congregations into a series of interfaith prayer vigils for immigration liberalization.

Underlying all of this Methodist social action is the feeling that the rights of illegal immigrants are being disregarded by Department of Homeland Security, which frequently employs deportation raids as an enforcement tool. But for liberal United Methodists, “rights” seem to include an entitlement to amnesty for their illegal residence and the bestowal of government healthcare and welfare services for persons who enter the country illegally. Along with many Religious Left groups, the United Methodist GBCS and General Board of Global Ministries have signed onto the “Interfaith Statement on Immigration Concerns,” which cites scriptures such as Leviticus 19:33-34 to justify amnesty-based reforms of the immigration system.

Activities of Methodist leaders on the issue have intensified in the past couple months, but they are certainly not unprecedented. GBCS sponsored multiple immigration conferences in the past year. Various Bishops and agencies participated in rallies that decried the perceived abuse of immigrant rights at the 2008 General Conference, and they have since called government enforcement efforts “racist.”

A week prior to the rally in Phoenix, Bishop Carcaño carried her message to a February 11 press conference at the U.S. Capitol. There she insisted, “As people of faith, we cannot and will not stand by in silence while the immigrant community in the U.S. is treated unjustly and inhumanely.” On February 27, faith leaders met in Phoenix to strategize on countering, in part, government raids and mass arrests of illegal immigrants. But days before, in response to one Washington raid, both White House officials and DHS chief Janet Napolitano pre-empted the groups concerns and disavowed raids as a part of the administration’s immigration policy.

But these anti-enforcement approaches to immigration reform extend beyond church leaders. Recently, a number of United Methodist congregations joined with approximately 170 congregations of different faiths and denominations in holding prayer vigils for liberalized immigration policies. An estimated 7000 congregants of the various religious groups participated in these vigils.

One Kansas City prayer vigil/protest was held outside a courthouse where deportation hearings were taking place for some illegal immigrants. A United Methodist congregation in Madison, Wisconsin, participated in the prayer vigil program, and is hosting a United Methodist Women conference this coming weekend to “focus on the celebration of our diversity” and discuss “immigration issues.”

Bill Mefford, the GBCS Director for Civil and Human Liberties, reported in a recent conference call that U.S. Congressmen would receive a package of media coverage of the prayer vigils that took place in their districts, to demonstrate that his or her religious constituents were advocating for change to immigration restrictions. Mefford explained, “We want to convey to our members of congress all the ways your places of worship are good neighbors to immigrant communities. We want to be able to ask members of congress, ‘How are you going to be a good neighbor to immigrants?’”

While all Christians would accept the importance of being a good neighbor, some might differ with the Religious Left’s extreme application of that to national security issues such as immigration. On the same conference call, Christ West, the national field organizer for Catholic Charities, recommended that advocates visiting their congressional representatives “talk about how legalizing undocumented immigrants will help with security because it cuts down the number of people that ICE agents have to check up on.”

One representative of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society expressed concerns that “EVerify [an online system operated by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration that employers can use to check whether an applicant is legally permitted to work in the United States] has been included in the omnibus bill” even though “many groups” were “concerned about the high error rates” of the program, which she said is “99.5% accurate.” (The omnibus bill later passed, retaining the eVerify provisions.)