May 12, 2009

CHICAGO – Lutherans are urging the Obama Administration to reform immigration enforcement actions, and for Congress and the president to enact "fair and humane" immigration reform before the end of 2009.

In a May 12 statement, 16 synod bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) expressed concern over the damage to communities and families by immigration raids, detention and other enforcement actions.

Based in Baltimore, LIRS is one of the nation's leading agencies in welcoming and advocating for refugees and other immigrants. It works on behalf of the ELCA, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

U.S. President Barack Obama "has made encouraging statements about the need to overhaul our immigration system," the statement said.

"Our faith tradition of love, justice and mercy compels us to seek reforms that promote family unity, protect human rights and create an earned path to permanence that enables undocumented people to come out of the shadows," the statement said.

"Without these reforms children will live in fear that their parents will be taken away, business owners will lose clients and churches will lose spiritual leaders. Reforming our immigration laws is not only good for immigrants, it is good for families, churches, businesses and communities," the statement said.

The release of the statement – "Postville, Iowa: One Year Later" – marks the first anniversary of the largest U.S. immigration raid. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security apprehended 389 immigrant workers May 12 last year at a meat processing plant in Postville.

The federal government spent more than $5.2 million to conduct the raid, the statement said. Devastating ripple effects continue to impact every corner of the Postville community, it said.

"Hundreds of families have either been separated by deportation or have left Postville. Others remain in legal limbo, waiting for the completion of their cases. Many businesses have closed, boarding up their windows. More businesses face bankruptcy. Decreased student enrollment will likely force the Postville schools to consolidate with other school districts," the statement said.

In regard to detention, "we remain concerned that it has become a one-size-fits-all solution for people apprehended in raids as well as other enforcement actions," it said. "Individuals are often sent to multiple detention facilities as they move through the immigration court system."

For the 2009 fiscal year, ICE estimates that it will detain about 450,000 undocumented immigrants in hundreds of federal, state and local government and privately-run facilities, costing U.S. taxpayers $1.7 billion, the statement said. "Instead of spending nearly $100 per day to detain individuals who pose no risk to the community, ICE could release them using bond, parole and other alternatives to detention, options that are more humane and use fewer taxpayer dollars."

"On the anniversary of the raid in Postville we are reminded that harsh enforcement measures put children at risk, divided families and drove other immigrants even farther into the shadows," the statement said. "The raids threw an entire community into disaster and economic peril as a result of a failure to recognize that immigrants and refugees are integral to our communities and to America's economic, cultural, social and political fabric."

"Postville, Iowa: One Year Later" is at http://www.lirs.org/News/NewsReleases/20090512PostvilleAnniversary.htm, on the Internet.

ELCA News Service