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Gamaliel's First National Issue Campaign
Civil Rights of Immigrants
COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM RALLY
WASHINGTON D.C MARCH 27, 2006
Rev. John C. Welch
Bidwell Presbyterian Church
President, Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network
We are gathering here on the steps of the Dirksen Building as a
coalition of 100 clergy people armed with prayer and determination,
backed by millions of people in this country, both documented and
undocumented, and empowered by a God who is well aware of the
double-minded imperialistic and exploitive attitudes of people in high
places in this country. These people in high places, namely the renegade
electorate, conveniently find the wherewithal to agree and vote on
matters that pander to their pockets and purses and those of their rich
constituents yet become anesthetized or paralyzed uncompassionately when
it comes to representing the concerns of the lower echelon. With 11
million undocumented residents in the United States we find it
repugnant, repulsive, and ridiculous that there are some in Congress who
think that it’s okay to exploit them in building up that national
treasury through wage and social security taxes and not carve out a path
to permanent residency for them. These same elected officials only need
go back two or three generations themselves to find their blood line
emanates from an immigrant pool. Had it not been for their ancestors
coming here looking for opportunities like these 12 million undocumented
we would not have become the richest nation in the world. I want to just
appeal to the one conscience in the halls of Congress left untainted,
and that is the conscience of the Senate, with the word of God that
says,
33 “Do not exploit the foreigners who live in your land. 34 They should
be treated like everyone else, and you must love them as you love
yourself…”
Love does not criminalize opportunity seekers; love does not criminalize
those who extend the hand of kindness to raise other children of God to
a level of respectability; love does not build a 700 mile wall; love
does not restrict access to a quality way of life.
Let me again appeal to the one conscience in the halls of Congress left
untainted, with what God says through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah,
Watch out, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive
statutes, 2 to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of
my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you
may make the orphans your prey!
You have turned the wives of the undocumented into widows and their
children into orphans by locking out the inhabitants from access to our
free society. We don’t need a gated community or the punitive
legislation shrewdly crafted by Sensenbrenner and championed by
Tancredo. If we as a nation can liberate the inhabitants of an oil rich
country who do not share our self interest, surely we can liberate
inhabitants in our own back yard who are contributing to the economy in
this country. If we allow any ground for the fascist attitudes of some
now, in due time, all people of color Latino, African, and
African-American will be further marginalized into a ghetto underclass!
In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The sins of respectable people are
revealed in their flight from responsibility.” This government has the
civil responsibility to protect our borders but the divinely appointed
responsibility to love its neighbors, especially the ones in our midst.
We are handcuffed today symbolizing our solidarity with the immigrants.
We would rather bind ourselves in solidarity than abide by oppressive
laws that defy our faith and values. We are calling for the Senate to
create a comprehensive immigration reform bill that will allow for the
dream of this country’s constitutional fathers to live on. As we are
cuffed together symbolizing our solidarity, we now break the cuffs
symbolizing our request for liberation. Somos America!!! Somos Hijos de
Dios!!! We are all Americans! We are all God’s Children. Somos
America!!! Somos Hijos de Dios!!! We are all Americans!!! We are all
Children of God!!!
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