April 2006

Immigration reform campaign heats up

The struggle for immigrant rights in our state and in our nation is in a critical phase. This struggle is about the character and future of our community. As you have undoubtedly heard, a movement against punitive, enforcement-only immigration proposals in Congress has risen up across the country. ISAIAH leaders and our allies are at the heart of this movement, working to educate and build relationships with our neighbors and legislators, and standing up to demand just, humane policies toward the immigrants in our communities. We are driven by our vision of a shared future where all of us are full participants, and all of us are embraced.

Right now, Congress is debating the most far-reaching changes in our immigration law in decades, with the fate of millions of immigrants and their children at stake. We know that our current immigration system is immoral, promoting exploitation, condemning millions to live in the shadows and keeping us all divided. Instead of fixing the system, the House passed a bill criminalizing undocumented immigrants and those who ‘assist’ them.

Church leaders quickly denounced this wrong-headed approach. Communities across the country rose up in unprecedented numbers to protest, including some of the biggest demonstrations ever seen in Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix, Denver and elsewhere. Along with our allies in the AFFIRM coalition, ISAIAH leaders dramatized the situation by turning themselves in to police in Minneapolis as potential ‘criminals’.

At the same time, in our own state legislature, various bills that would force local authorities to collect and report immigration status data, make county health workers report undocumented immigrants to federal officials, outlaw the current separation ordinances in Minneapolis and St. Paul, codify the driver’s license immigration status check, and create a state immigration enforcement team (the first such statewide law enforcement team) are making their way through the legislative process.

In response to these anti-immigrant proposals at both the state and federal levels, ISAIAH immigrant leaders in the St. Cloud and Twin Cities areas organized simultaneous events on March 12—a powerful Assembly of Hope and Equality in St. Paul that drew 1,400 people, including legislators and diverse community leaders pledging to work for immigrant rights and comprehensive immigration reform, and a Town Hall Forum in Waite Park [see article for more on the GRIP event.] ISAIAH immigrant leaders are also intensively engaging and building relationships with non-immigrant congregations through Pilgrimage experiences—worshiping and learning together—as well as immigration ‘road shows’ or education/action forums.

Across our region, we are making our voices heard. ISAIAH leaders and our allies are having conversations with our state legislators about our vision of inclusive community, and our need for immigration laws grounded in justice, mercy, fairness and respect. From the Twin Cities, the suburbs, and the St. Cloud area, we are making calls and sending letters and postcards to our federal Senators and Representatives, urging them to support real immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship, family reunification, and protection of workers' rights. Our elected officials need to keep hearing from us—it is our hopeful voices that can shift the conversation and the direction we will take together.

We are at a crossroads, as a state and as a nation. We can choose the path of fear, with policies and politics that divide us from one another, and scapegoat immigrants, or we can choose the path of hope, building toward a future of promise, in a society that embraces all of us. How we choose to treat the immigrants among us is an indicator of the kind of future we are building. ISAIAH leaders, immigrants and non-immigrants, are standing up for just and humane immigration reform, so that we can build a hopeful future—together.