Three United Methodist leaders sent a letter to the U.S. Senate subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees & Border Security urging them to pass the DREAM Act.

The bipartisan legislation, recently reintroduced by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., in the Senate and Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif., and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., in the House, would provide a process for undocumented students brought to the United States as children to become legal citizens.

The letter was signed by Bishops Minerva Carcaño (Phoenix Area) and Julius Trimble (Iowa), and Jim Winkler, chief executive of the General Board of Church & Society.

Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the United Methodist Church urges the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

"There are 12 million people, immigrants, living and toiling away and laboring, walking and working side by side with us, worshipping with us, who are in need of documentation, in need of fair treatment," Carcano says.

The South Carolina Annual Conference passed a resolution at its annual meeting last month that calls for reform of U.S. immigration policies. The resolution criticizes legislation being considered in the state senate and encourages every United Methodist congregation to study the biblical basis of hospitality to all.

The resolution was approved at the conference’s annual meeting, called the “The Wesleyan Way,” June 10-13 at the Florence Civic Center. The legislation, “A Resolution for Immigration Reform,” was proposed by the conference’s Hispanic/Latino Committee.

Since Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed her state’s anti-immigration legislation, SB1070 into law in April 2010, other states across the nation have imposed similar measures. State governments in Utah, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Alabama have used Arizona’s SB 1070 law as a model to craft their own legislation that targets illegal immigrants and allows local police officers to become de facto enforcers of federal immigration laws.

Advocates for immigration reform have branded these state laws as draconian, resulting in fear among undocumented workers and their families, unharvested local crops and damage to the economy. Lawsuits by civil liberties groups have resulted in portions of some state anti-immigration laws being suspended, pending court action and appeals. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with David Leopold, immediate past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He discusses the impact of these state laws and the urgent need for Congress to take action on comprehensive immigration reform.