Interfaith Immigration Reform Letter Includes Baptists

Over two hundred religious organizations, denominations and respected faith leaders have signed a document submitted to the Obama-Biden transition team on the subject of Immigration Reform. Baptist signatories include the National Ministries of American Baptist Churches USA and the Miami Baptist Association. ABC-USA is a “mainline” denomination made up of 1.4 million Baptists in 5,780 churches. The Miami Baptist Association is a network of over 300 ethnically diverse Southern Baptist churches in Dade County, Florida.

Below are a few excerpts from the Interfaith Platform on Humane Immigration Reform

As our diverse faith traditions teach us to welcome our brothers and sisters with love and compassion—regardless of their place of birth—we call on the new Administration and 111th Congress to enact humane and equitable immigration reform in 2009.

We call for immigration reform because each day in our congregations, service programs, health-care facilities, and schools we witness the human consequences of a broken and outdated system. We see the exploitation of undocumented workers and the plight of separated families, as well as the escalation of community fear due to indiscriminate raids and local police acting as federal immigration agents. Humane immigration reform would help put an end to this suffering, which offends the dignity of all human beings.

The Hebrew Bible tells us: “The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:33-34). In the New Testament, Jesus tells us to welcome the stranger, for “what you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me” (Matthew 25:40). The Qur’an tells us that we should “do good to…those in need, neighbors who are near, neighbors who are strangers, the companion by your side, the wayfarer that you meet” (4:36). The Hindu Taitiriya Upanishad tells us: “The guest is a representative of God” (1.11.2).

The interfaith document on immigration reform includes quite a few specifics. Read the entire document here.

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