October 8, 2009

WASHINGTON, DC – At a U.S. Senate hearing today, global humanitarian agency Church World Service called for immigration reform that prioritizes family unity and provides a pathway to legal status and eventual earned citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Church World Service "urges members of Congress to take into account the voices of people of faith" who support these reforms, said CWS Immigration and Refugee Program Director Erol Kekic in his written submission to the hearing.

Kekic described a large and growing national movement in which people of faith are attending prayer vigils and writing, phoning and visiting their elected officials to advocate for humane, equitable immigration reform.

"Faith communities around the United States are rallying behind immigration reform," Kekic said. "This energy and the strong network from which it springs cannot be ignored."

Today's hearing, "Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Faith-Based Perspectives," was held before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security, chaired by New York Senator Charles E. Schumer.

In its submission, Church World Service called for immigration reform that:

• Improves our family-based immigration system to significantly reduce waiting times for separated families who currently wait many years to be reunited.

• Creates legal avenues for immigrants to safely and legally work in the United States, with their employee rights fully protected.

• Provides a pathway to earned legalization, including eventual citizenship, to undocumented immigrants. This would keep families together, remedy the abuse of undocumented workers, and enhance government knowledge of who is living in this country.

• Mandates that domestic law enforcement agencies ensure the safety of all persons, rather than attempting to serve as immigration enforcement, which hinders justice for immigrants and citizens alike and can result in criminals targeting immigrants who may not report crimes due to fear of deportation.

• Safeguards asylum seekers by ensuring them a fair legal process without penalizing them with increased, unnecessary bureaucracy.

• Facilitates immigrant integration by funding state and local governments and community organizations that offer language and civics education, outreach and naturalization application assistance and by lowering such barriers as high fees and long backlogs.

• Restores due process protections and reforms detention policies, ending indiscriminate raids, improving detention conditions, expediting the release of individuals who pose no risk to the community and expanding the use of community-based alternatives to detention.

Church World Service is the relief, development and refugee assistance agency supported by public donations, grants and 35 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican communions in the United States. The organization works in the U.S. and internationally to eradicate hunger and poverty and promote peace and justice.

Since 1946, Church World Service has helped more than 480,000 refugees begin new lives in this country. A CWS network of 32 community-based affiliates in 22 states welcomes refugees, helping with job training, English language learning, integration, citizenship acquisition, family reunification, and other needs. Most CWS affiliates are Board of Immigration Appeals-accredited to provide immigration legal services, and CWS is in the process of expanding immigration legal services in its headquarters office.

Church World Service partners with other faith communities to mobilize grass roots efforts in states key to enacting immigration reform. For the past year, the work of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition, of which CWS is an active member, has motivated many thousands of people of faith to sign petitions, attend prayer vigils, participate in Congressional visits and advocacy calls, and to unite for ongoing action on immigration reform.

Church World Service