Roy Beck
Immigrants' rights activists march for comprehensive immigration reform. Photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Shutterstock.com
In a recent USA Today article, reporter Alan Gomez highlights the broad support for immigration reform including among the evangelical faith community.
“About 300 conservatives from around the country and with varying backgrounds — pastors, farmers, police chiefs, business owners — will arrive in Washington on Oct. 28 to meet with Republican lawmakers and make a conservative pitch for a new immigration law,” he wrote.
While Gomez’s piece effectively captures the strong support for immigration reform among evangelical leaders, among others, it also quotes Roy Beck, executive director of the population-control group NumbersUSA, who says these leaders “don’t represent the evangelical rank and file.”
Polls and recent grassroots activity show otherwise.
Sojourner staffers praying outside the Capitol building on behalf of the Evangelical Immigration Table in June. Photo by RNS.
Evangelical leaders pushing for comprehensive immigration reform will be back in Washington next week, praying and lobbying on Capitol Hill.
They’ll need all the help they can get — divine or otherwise — after the Senate’s immigration reform bill hit a brick wall of opposition in the Republican-controlled House.
Dozens of Catholic university presidents sent a letter Thursday to Catholic members of Congress urging them to act, declaring, “We are part of an immigrant church in an immigrant nation.”