Immmigration reform is a moral duty, religious leaders tell House committee

WASHINGTON — Religious leaders Wednesday urged members of a House committee to consult their own religious sensibilities and take action to pass some version of immigration reform, a moral duty they said is reflected in scripture.

In what could be seen more as an exercise in catharsis for proponents and opponents of reform rather than actual preparation for any legislative action, the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law hosted religious leaders to discuss the moral and ethical aspects of immigration reform.

The rhetoric of the hearing was often more scriptural and theoretical than legislative, with members of Congress and the four witnesses citing specific Bible passages to support the need for action.

The witnesses — including the head of Liberty University’s Law School and the archbishop of Tucson, Ariz. — called illegal immigration “a crisis” and “ultimately a humanitarian issue” with moral implications that required both a tough and compassionate response.

“The immigration debate does not belong to any political party,” said the Rev. Mathew Staver, law school dean at Liberty, which was founded by the late Jerry Falwell, who co-founded the Moral Majority.

But Congress is unlikely to make any substantial effort on immigration reform before the end of the summer, many analysts say, because it is working through both a Wall Street reform bill and an energy bill. Immigration could be a controversial issue for some Democrats during midterm elections, as well.

The witnesses included Staver, who is a former Seventh-day Adventist pastor, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of the Catholic Archdiocese of Tucson, Ariz., Dr. Richard Land, a Southern Baptist evangelical, and James R. Edwards, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for slowing the rate of immigration.

“You can save us from ourselves and partisan bickering,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., to the table of four witnesses. Gutierrez said the religious leaders would play an important role when a bill does gain traction because of the sway they hold within their communities.

Wednesday’s hearing might be one of the last attempts members of Congress have to sink their teeth into the issue until after November. That did not stop members and witnesses from clearly expressing their frustration about the partisan issues and roadblocks that plague the issue.

“I think we are tiptoeing through the tulips,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. She called the Republican Party the “major impediment” to passing the kind of comprehensive immigration reform the president has called for in recent months.

“You could take wings and fly around this room, and you still would not get them to get across this schism they have,” she said of Republican lawmakers.

What the hearing did accomplish was to inform committee members that an expanding number of religious groups are demanding changes to immigration laws.

“I think I speak for a majority of Southern Baptists,” said Land, who is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. Land said that his church, traditionally a bastion of conservatism, has seen that illegal immigration laws cannot be left at the status quo.

“I think there’s a growing sense it’s rending the social fabric,” he said.

Some of the solutions discussed by Land and other witnesses included a more technologically advanced Social Security system that would allow employers to determine whether job-seekers are legal, greater border security and an earnable pathway to legal status for illegal immigrants already across the border.

In their written testimony, he and other witnesses did not advocate for mass retroactive deportations or for blanket amnesty for immigrants.

“Every time we’ve passed an anti-immigration law we’ve been on the wrong side of history,” said Staver.