Surprisingly, evangelicals in US support immigration reform

WASHINGTON— Thou shalt compromise, at least on immigration reform.

That is the message being heard from some leading evangelicals in the United States. After decades of promoting traditionally conservative causes like opposition to abortion, many evangelical leaders are now wielding their formidable influence to persuade Republican lawmakers to back one of President Barack Obama’s top priorities.

With Hispanic attendance at their churches rising, these evangelicals are among the loudest advocates of a US immigration reform. A group of pastors has launched a 40-day campaign to have churchgoers pray, read scripture passages about welcoming the stranger and lobby their members of Congress, many of them in the conservative South.

Red states

“We have pastors preach in pulpits to parishioners in Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas—in all the wonderful red states across America,” that aiding immigrants, illegal or not, is a Christian duty, said Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, one of the country’s most prominent Hispanic evangelicals.

While evangelicals have been a major force in Republican politics for years, Republican lawmakers will take some persuading to back the sort of immigration reform supported by President Barack Obama, which includes a “pathway” to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally.

Conservatives in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives want to focus the debate initially on securing the border with Mexico and making sure illegal immigrants are not rewarded with an amnesty.

Moral argument

“Some of them don’t necessarily see or acknowledge the changing demographics or the electoral merits of passing immigration reform, but I do think that many of these religious leaders could push them in that direction by really referencing the humanitarian interest, or moral argument,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.

Rodriguez and other pastors are speaking to members of Congress “on a daily basis” to ask them to legalize the status of 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Unlikely as it may have seemed at the height of the “culture wars” of the last two decades, these evangelicals are attempting to nudge Republicans to the center.