Immigration reform remains at impasse
- Aug 11, 2006 - 1
Congress has not found a path around the roadblock on immigration reform as it approaches its final month of work before the fall election.
The issue has sharply divided the Senate and House of Representatives. Both houses have begun month-long recesses, with the Senate set to reconvene Sept. 5 and the House Sept. 6. Congressional leaders hope to adjourn by early October, giving members another month to campaign before the Nov. 7 election.
The Senate version, which was adopted in May, includes provisions intended to secure the border with Mexico but also would establish a guest-worker program and enable most illegal immigrants to enter a process to become citizens. Some House Republicans and other conservatives have charged it would provide amnesty to those who are in this country illegally.
The House version, which was passed in December, focuses on border security and enforcement against illegal immigrants and those who aid them. Hispanic leaders and Senate Democrats have sharply criticized it as lacking in compassion.
On Aug. 3, President Bush again pressed Congress for a comprehensive solution.
ERLC President Richard Land has continued to call for a measure that would combine the strongest aspects of both bills. He told a Washington, D.C., interfaith conference on immigration reform it has been helpful for him to think of the issue in terms of the two kingdoms to which Christians belong.
American Christians are citizens of both the United States and Heaven, he said.
“[A]s citizens of the nation we have a right to expect the government to have immigration laws that will be enforced,” Land said. “If the laws aren’t the right laws, then they need to be changed. And when you have the government just massively ignoring the law, as it has been doing under both Democratic and Republican administrations for many, many years, that erodes the rule of law, and that’s a dangerous thing in any society and certainly something we should be concerned about.
“And as citizens of the heavenly kingdom,” he told those attending the July 12 event, “we have a responsibility to give a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name; we have a responsibility to act redemptively and compassionately to the strangers in our midst; we have an obligation and responsibility to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, to seek to house the homeless, to feed the hungry and to act compassionately.”
Land decried a provision in the House version that critics say would require those who minister to immigrants to confirm their legal status.
“As a Christian, I have a responsibility to reach out to those in our midst who are hurting, whether they’re legal or not,” he said. “And the provision in the House bill that would potentially criminalize private, charitable behavior toward illegal immigrants is absolutely abominable. It must not become law.”
The Senate acted to strengthen border security and, in the process, reversed itself Aug. 2. Senators voted 94-3 to fund the construction of 370 miles of fencing and 461 miles of vehicle barriers on the United States-Mexico border. The vote came less than three weeks after the Senate voted 71-29 against funds for the same work. Senators authorized the border proposal in May without funding it.
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1 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Oct 5th, 2006, at 11:31am, Paul W. Moody wrote:
The imigration issue is only one issue in which our lawmakers have been failing to enforce the law for many years. As a matter of fact, Our lawmakers do not hold themselves to the same standards they hold the average citizen. In one example, if the average American doesn’t pay his taxes, he can go to jail. If lawmakers waste tax payer money by allowing fraud and corruption, nothing happens to them. It causes Americans to become cynical when lawmakers, by their attitude, act as if they are above the law.
Sincerely, Paul Moody