March 21, 2010

WASHINGTON, DC – As a lead-up to this afternoon's massive "March for America" immigration reform rally on the National Mall, an international conference this weekend on global migration issues also raised the volume on the immigration reform issue.

Frustrated by an immigration system that fractures families and is viewed by reform proponents as neither fair nor humane, the nearly 750 participants at this year's Ecumenical Advocacy Days conference in Washington (March 19 – 21) are urging new U.S. immigration policies that make family unity a priority and provide visa reform, fair worker's rights, earned legal status for the undocumented, and humane enforcement.

"America's broken immigration system creates the undocumented immigration problem," said Jen Smyers, Associate for Immigration and Refugee Policy with humanitarian agency Church World Service. "The punishment doesn't fit the crime." Lacking documents is in violation of a civil statute, she said, and the punishment of "ripping people from their families" is too harsh.

Conscious of the historic deliberations on health care in the U.S. Congress over the weekend, Smyers remarked to the advocacy conference attendees, "While we are at the March for America rally, Congress is voting on health care, with all of us out there saying, â*˜Congratulations! Next up – comprehensive immigration reform!"

John McCullough, Executive Director and CEO of Church World Service, told participants, "We are called to be part of an expanding vision of what it means to be family."

Frank Sharry is Founder and Executive Director of America's Voice, a communications campaign working to win common-sense immigration reform, and is former Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum policy organization. Addressing the advocacy conference, Sharry said, "How can we be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, so that family members can come with visas and on planes rather than risking their lives to cross the desert and using smugglers?

"The only way we can couple enforcement with humanity is to change the law. The current brutal enforcement policies are trampling our values," he said.

"I don't support breaking the law, but I do support reviewing laws that are not in accord with the values of our country and that don't serve our nation's needs," Sister Mary McCauley told conference attendees. McCauley was pastoral administrator for St. Bridget's Church in Postville, Iowa, where a U.S. immigration raid at Agriprocessors kosher meat packing plant in May 2008 arrested 389 undocumented workers.

"People of faith care about these issues, and they are being heard in Washington," CWS's Smyers said.

One conference participant, a U.S. citizen and wife of an undocumented immigrant, told of her husband's deportation to Mexico and subsequent arrest when he tried to return to the U.S. He's now serving time in a federal penitentiary, she said, "for the crime of wanting to be a father to his children."

"It's not fair to strip a family of its dignity," she said. "We need strong effective laws while providing families the option of staying together. But it's not fair to keep a father from his children. It's not fair to keep a husband from his wife."

Rev. Sharon Watkins, General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), told the gathering, "There is no God but God, no family but the human family. Human history shows that one God does not necessarily mean one people. But it should. It should. The challenge is to see past false division and to see one human family, no matter which side of the human-made border we were born on or whether or not we have documents."

CWS building nationwide immigration legal services network In advance of congressional debates and possible enactment of immigration reform, in February Church World Service announced plans to expand its nationwide network of immigration legal services.

CWS's McCullough, whose humanitarian agency advocates for U.S. immigration reform and resettles refugees in the U.S., said, "We're hopeful that immigration reform will become a reality. We're therefore anticipating that demand for immigration legal services will increase, as many individuals and families who currently live in the shadows find they need assistance to file immigration applications and navigate the complex immigration system in order to legalize their status and reunite with family members."

The weekend's advocacy conference, "A Place to Call Home: Immigrants, Refugees, and Displaced Peoples," focused equally on global issues: Participants balanced preparations for a day of immigration reform lobbying on Capitol Hill on Monday – while attending workshops deliberating the displacement of millions worldwide who are forced to migrate because of conflict, climate-induced water and food shortages, natural and economic disasters.

Church World Service is a co-sponsor of Ecumenical Advocacy Days.

Church World Service