Join the ‘Neighbor-to-Neighbor’ campaign

In this season of Lent, as we approach Holy Week and Easter, seeking mercy and justice for immigrants without status in our country is an ideal way to emulate the love and acceptance Jesus Christ offers to persons, including sojourners, who are outcast and rejected by society.

The General Commission on Religion and Race is urging conference commissions and equivalent groups to join and promote the “Neighbor-to-Neighbor” campaign by forming teams to lobby members of Congress for comprehensive immigration reform while they are home for their Easter recess in early April.

The campaign, announced by the Interfaith Immigration Coalition during its March 2 national teleconference, urges supporters to visit their legislators during Congress’s April 6-17 Easter break and appeal for benevolent action to enact more humane federal immigration policies.

The recess is a time when members of Congress meet with constituents back home to hear about their concerns and seek their support. While the current economic crisis will be the focus of much discussion, the need for immigration reform is critical now to alleviate the brutal mistreatment of undocumented persons across the nation through enforcement raids, abuse, stolen wages and separation from their families.

The Interfaith Immigration Coalition is calling on congregations, Sunday school classes, campus ministries and other groups—especially those in ministry with immigrants and refugees—to visit in teams with their Congressional leaders and ask for a humane, comprehensive immigration bill now. The last comprehensive reform bill failed in Congress two years ago.

“We’re asking our board members and Commission on Religion and Race (CORR) leaders throughout the United Methodist connection to help spread the word and mobilize some of these teams in ways that can make a real impact,” said Erin Hawkins, GCORR general secretary. “Despite what many people think, there is hopeful confidence among people of faith that we can help make immigration reform happen this year if we are determined to keep the urgency before our nation’s lawmakers.”

President Barack Obama is expected to address the nation about the need for new immigration policies next week, after calling for comprehensive reform at a town hall meeting in California this week. He said immigration is a high-emotion issue that cannot be dealt with in pieces, the Associated Press reported.

Obama wants to work with leaders in Congress and in Mexico to come up with a comprehensive plan. That plan would include giving longtime undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship so they can join unions and get protection from employers who exploit them. It also includes allowing immigrants without status to earn U.S. citizenship if they pay a fine and learn English. Obama said residents who have put down roots should be able to come out of hiding.

The interfaith coalition advises visitors to find out where their Congressional representatives stand on the issue of immigration reform, to provide them with the coalition’s own policy platform, and to let them know “that we are not going away,” said Chris West, a coalition organizer. “We are going to pay attention to how they vote, and we will keep working and praying for change.”

GCORR is one of more than 500 endorsers of the coalition’s platform. A humane national immigration policy is among the Commission’s priorities in advocating for United Methodists to show respect, compassion and hospitality toward people of all races, including sojourners from other lands.

Purpose of Neighbor-to-Neighbor In-District Meetings

Establishing close relationships with your members of Congress is crucial to enacting humane immigration reform. Our goals are:

1. To understand where the member stands on the issue.

2. To understand that member’s interests.

3. To (hopefully) get a commitment of support for our issue.

4. To build relationships among our people, public officials and institutions that influence our community.

5. To train ourselves to “act” in public arenas.

Because the process of change takes time, lobby visits should be viewed as a part of a larger process. We need to gather information, build power, and continually get better at what we do and how we do it.

Visit the Interfaith Immigration Coalition Web site at www.interfaithimmigration.org/ to get more information on the campaign and Advocacy Tips to help you plan your visits. Also, once you plan your Neighbor-to-Neighbor visits, post them on the coalition’s online event calender.

National Interfaith Immigration Conference Call on Monday, April 6

On first Mondays of each month, at 4 pm EST, the Interfaith Immigration Coalition hosts national conference calls with different emphases.

If you would like to participate in the monthly calls, e-mail Bill Mefford of the General Board of Church and Society at bmefford@umc-gbcs.org for the call-in number and code. Join with people of faith from across the country to plan and strategize how to attain just and humane immigration reform in 2009!

The next phone call is scheduled for April 6 at 4 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Savings Time). Anyone can join in by calling 800-920-7487 and using conference call code number 76723736. Remember to place your phone on Mute unless you are speaking.

The Interfaith Immigration Coalition is a partnership of faith-based organizations committed to enacting fair and humane immigration reform that reflects our mandate to welcome the stranger and treat all human beings with dignity and respect. Coalition members work together to advocate for just and equitable immigration policies, educate faith communities, and serve immigrant populations around the country. Through this coalition, hundreds of national and local faith-based organizations and faith leaders have called on Congress and the Administration to enact immigration reform consistent with these values.

CORR participation in Family Unity Hearings

Have you participated in any of the Family Unity Hearings occurring around the nation since February or in any other immigration reform advocacy activities? If so, please contact us at news@gcorr.org, to let us know.

What about prayer vigils, group studies and dialogues, protest actions, proposed resolutions, immigrant outreach ministries, Justice for Our Neighbors immigration legal clinics and so on? If you or your commission has participated, or plans to participate, in any activities to advocate for immigration policy reform and for humane treatment of undocumented persons, please let us know as soon as possible, so we can report the ongoing involvement of our CORR Connection to the denomination.

The family unity hearing sessions are set to continue until April 4. See the schedule on our Web site for dates and locations. The Rev. Andrew Oren, who chairs the Wisconsin Conference Commission on Religion and Race and has been active in immigration reform efforts, plans to be at the hearing in Milwaukee, Wisc., on Sunday, March 22. We will report on his experiences and observations there on the April issue of CORR Connection News. In the meantime, please pray for all sojourners and advocates who are working and hoping for comprehensive, humanitarian reform of our nation’s immigration laws and practice this year.

Read more articles on our Web site …
about involvement by CORR leaders in immigration reform efforts: 

Bishop urges racial justice leaders to work for immigration reform
Call to action for immigration reform: Bishop Carcano advises Religion and Race leaders to engage in prayer vigils, study groups and efforts to organize immigration legal clinics.

CORR leaders join actions on immigration reform
Signs of support for reform: Current religious advocacy efforts calling for immigration policy reform follow a month of protests, prayer vigils and press conferences held by interfaith groups, including United Methodist leaders of commissions on Religion and Race.

GCORR urges support for immigration reform advocacy Justice, mercy for our neighbors: The General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR) is calling on advocates for racial justice and inclusiveness to join and help promote new endeavors in the national interfaith campaign for more humane immigration policies.

United Methodists join protest against sheriff
Prayers and Protests for Justice: Demonstrators march in Phoenix to protest immigration enforcement raids targeting Hispanic/Latino residents and mistreatment of undocumented detainees.

Immigrant Family Unity Hearings--Volunteers Needed
Hearings conducted around the U.S.in March and April will welcome testimony from undocumented immigrants’ families threatened and torn apart by increasing immigration raids and arrests. Volunteers are needed to invite and assist families who come to share their stories.

United Methodists to march for immigrants’ rights
Marching to protest mistreatment: Led by Bishop Minerva Carcaño, United Methodists will join fellow advocates in a march on Feb. 28 to protest racist mistreatment of immigrant communities and of inmates awaiting trial for being undocumented.

Bishop demands end to abuse of immigrants
'Enough is enough,' proclaimed United Methodist Bishop Minerva Carcaño at a Feb. 23 interfaith prayer vigil in Phoenix, Ariz., as she called for an end to harsh local and federal immigration enforcement policies and practices.