Christian Responses

Many people of faith recognize that the immigration system has not been working for years and some go as far as declare that it is now irretrievably “broken.”¹ They challenge enforcement-only approaches, which both fail to address the root causes of unauthorized immigration and run counter to religious notions of solidarity, charity, and compassion. The General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, for example, has explicitly stated that such approaches “are limited in their scope and take into account only the ‘breaking of the law’ through illegal crossing of the border. The enforcement-only approach does not seek to understand the context of why so many have crossed the U.S. northern and southern border illegally” (United Methodist Church 2011). Seeking to respond to the needs of the estimated eleven million people living in this country without official immigration papers, religious groups offer pastoral support and engage in advocacy. They aim both to help immigrants settle – and remain settled – and to unsettle government policy (Snyder Reference Snyder2011).

In this and the following section, we throw a spotlight on some religious responses – those made by denominational structures and coalitions at a national level – and outline in more depth the theo-ethical principles that underpin them. Most Christian denominations have expressed opposition to increasingly draconian state bills and local ordinances directed against unauthorized immigrants, while advocating for meaningful immigration reform, even if they do not always agree on the matter of offering a path to citizenship. In doing so, they claim to be challenging the current laws of the land on the basis of an alternative set of laws – those of God. These statements and actions are, as the situation in Alabama demonstrated, sometimes able to bring about significant change in local, state, and national discourse and debate, largely because religious leaders – and particularly Christians – have a privileged voice that carries moral authority (see Smith Reference Smith1996: 20).² As Walter Nicholls demonstrates in his chapter in this volume (Chapter 10), vigorous campaigning by young immigrants supported by FBOs and other coalitions around the Development Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act,³ contributed to President Obama signing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on June 15, 2012. DACA offers those who have been brought to the country as minors and who met certain other requirements a reprieve from deportation. According to Obama, this was “the right thing to do” as so-called DREAMers are “Americans in their hearts, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper.”⁴ The success of the DREAMers was due in large part to the strategic use of practices of civil disobedience, including marches, sit-ins, and witnessing, that groups like United We Dream borrowed from the civil rights movement. In one case, United We Dream leaders even met with one of President Obama’s senior advisors to press their case in a church in Washington, D.C., because unauthorized immigrants could not enter the White House.⁵ Even more significantly, the reelection of President Obama can be seen as a referendum on both his campaign commitment to bring about comprehensive immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship in his next term, and the preference of Mitt Romney for “self-deportation” as a solution to current immigration challenges. FBOs, working closely with DREAM activists, have played a noticeable explicit and implicit role in bringing about this shift in discourse and the pendulum of public opinion.

At the most general level, FBOs have been at the forefront of challenging the construction of the category of illegality, particularly its recent association in public discourse with criminality, civic insecurity, and terrorism. For example, the World Council of Churches (WCC), a worldwide fellowship of 349 Protestant and Orthodox denominations and churches based in 110 countries, observes with concern that

For the WCC, the critique and rejection of the category of illegality stems from “the sacredness of all human life and the sanctity of all creation.” It argues that “the Biblical values of love, justice and peace compel us to renew Christian responses to the marginalized and excluded,” and “the Biblical challenge to build inclusive community requires us to accompany the uprooted in service and witness’” (World Council of Churches 1998).

Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, speaking in more general moral terms, wrote: “You who are so-called illegal aliens must know that no human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?”⁶ Wiesel here points to the contingent and fabricated nature of the category of illegality. It is not an essence or a fixed natural condition. Rather, it is a political and juridical category connected to the historical emergence of the nation-state (Ngai Reference Ngai2004).⁷

While FBOs are playing an important role in contesting the category of illegality, most their work has concentrated on accompanying, defending, and welcoming unauthorized immigrants as individual human beings who deserve understanding, respect, and love. In large part, this is a function of the fact that religious congregations are often at the frontlines of local tensions generated by immigration and increasing racial and religious diversity. As we shall see in our case studies, congregations are one of the few safe spaces where unauthorized immigrants and the native born can meet face to face, beyond the dehumanizing discourses of illegality that dominate the public sphere. This is the driving force behind the emergence of an interdenominational and interreligious New Sanctuary Movement, which seeks to move “immigrants from victim to witness.”⁸

Denominations humanize and serve immigrants in diverse but complementary ways. As a church that has historically experienced hostility from nativist groups like the Know-Nothing Party, and one that is currently witnessing dramatic changes in its internal composition due to the presence of large groups of immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the Catholic Church has been among the clearest voices defending the dignity and rights of unauthorized immigrants. The Church’s stance is powerfully articulated in Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope, a pastoral letter issued jointly by the bishops of the United States and Mexico in 2003. The document concludes by citing John Paul II’s message for World Migration Day in 1995:

The U.S. and Mexican bishops also pledge directly to migrants to

Out of this call for solidarity, the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) launched in 2005 the national campaign Justice for Immigrants: A Journey of Hope. This campaign maintains an active website that offers “parish toolkits” explaining the Church’s position on immigration and providing resources to develop a welcoming parish. These resources may involve hosting international dinners or job fairs, offering English-language classes, planning multicultural liturgies, training immigrant lay members, providing legal services, and coordinating letter-writing campaigns and visits with local legislators to lobby for a comprehensive and humane reform (Justice for Immigrants Reference Immigrants2011).

In its most recent statement on the subject, Welcoming Christ in the Migrant (2011), the USCCB reiterates the message of dignity and solidarity in Strangers no Longer and also engages another key theme in Jewish and Christian responses to migrants: the recognition that key figures in their traditions were migrants. Welcoming Christ in the Migrant underscores the widespread reality of migration in the Bible, from Abraham and Sarah, who are called to migrate from Ur to Canaan, and Moses leading the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt and wandering for forty years in the wilderness to Matthew’s account of Joseph and Mary fleeing to Egypt to escape the repressive hand of King Herod. It also points out that “Jesus is portrayed as a migrant,” who “had no place of his own and relied on the hospitality of others for his and his disciples’ needs” (U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops 2011: 4).

These scriptural resources inform a long tradition of Catholic social teaching, which on the subject of immigration relies on three fundamental principles: (1) people have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families; (2) a country has the right to regulate its borders and control migration; and (3) a country must regulate its borders with justice and mercy (U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops 2011: 5). The first principle – echoed in the secular language of human rights – includes the right of individuals not to migrate. This principle is rooted in the Christian conception of the fundamental dignity of all human persons. Created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26–27) and as “God’s children,” all human beings have value and dignity, regardless of class, race, gender, or immigration status, and all have an inherent right to pursue the flourishing of themselves and their families. The second and third principles rest on the twin notions of the “sovereignty” and “common good,” sovereignty understood as “the duty and responsibility of sovereign states to regulate their borders in furtherance of the common good.” It is exercised through determining who is allowed access to its territory and who can receive political membership (Kerwin Reference Kerwin, Kerwin and Gerschutz2009: 105–6). Prima face, the first and second principles appear to contradict each other: it is often argued that the “common good” of natives in terms of jobs and resources and their “sovereignty” are threatened by Mexicans and Central Americans exercising their “right” to migrate. However, the bishops argue that they are reconciled by the third principle, which calls nations to find the right balance between “valid security needs while at the same time striving to meet the basic human needs of others, including those who are foreign born.” In regulating their borders with justice and mercy, nations must seek “the common good above self-interest. Family reunification must be at the center of all government migration policies …” (U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops 2011: 6). As they have pointed out, the principles are complementary as “the common good is not served when the basic human rights of the individual are violated” (U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops and Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano 2003: para. 39). “Common good” is here understood as “universal” or “borderless” and relates to the whole global human family. In the face of globalization and the increasing interdependence of nation states, “neighbors” can no longer be understood only or primarily as those who are physically proximate. Solidarity is the virtue through which “the common good is realized” (Kerwin Reference Kerwin, Kerwin and Gerschutz2009: 104–5).⁹

Protestant denominations tend to focus more exclusively on biblical texts. For instance, the General Board of Church and Society of the Methodist Church begins its statement on immigration with a citation from Leviticus 19:33–34: “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you: you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” This citation frames the work of the United Methodist Task Force on Immigration, which created Immigration Rapid Response Teams in thirty-one of the church’s annual conferences. In September and October 2011, seven sites in these thirty-one conferences held Bible study sessions in support of DREAM Sabbath, a campaign coordinated by the Interfaith Immigrant Coalition.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) recalls “Paul’s admonition: ‘Welcome one another, just as Christ has welcomed you, to the glory of God’” (Rom. 15:7). Drawing on the Leviticus passage mentioned previously, ELCA’s statement on immigration further enjoins the faithful: “We should hear our own ethnic groups degraded when they first arrived. Recalling that our families were once the ‘stranger’ – and remembering our Lord’s call to love our neighbor as ourselves – can expand our moral imagination, enable us to see the new ‘stranger’ as our neighbor, and open us to welcome today’s newcomers.”

ELCA warns that “the existence of a permanent sub-group of people who live without recourse to effective legal protection opens the door for their massive abuse and exploitation and harms the common good” and calls for “flexible and humane ways for undocumented persons who have been in this country for a specified amount of time to be able to adjust their legal status” (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 2011).

Embedded in the notion of having a duty to care for the “stranger” are two significant ethical assumptions. First, biblical calls to welcome outsiders are usually linked with an invitation to remember one’s own identity as a stranger, to recall the long tradition of the people of God of movement and exile. Significantly, the ELCA echoes this practice in asking their members to remember their own identities as “degraded” immigrants when they first arrived in the United States. The native born are to respond from a place of empathy, from memories of their own marginalization and need. Second, caring for the stranger always ends up benefiting the one who provides care as much as the cared for. Hebrews 13:2 – another oft-quoted passage in immigration activist circles – states, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Through encountering the immigrant or “guest,” the “host” is also enriched and transformed. Both parties are simultaneously “host” and “guest”– a reality that is particularly pertinent when thinking about unauthorized immigrants who have been firmly established in the United States for decades, with homes, jobs, and, in some cases, offering “care” to U.S. citizens through domestic or child care labor. Immigrants have also been responsible for the reinvigoration of churches in many places, numerically, culturally, economically, and theologically (Levitt Reference Levitt2007; Lorentzen et al. Reference Lorentzen, Gonzalez, Chun and Do2009).¹⁰ These two assumptions point toward an approach rooted in mutuality rather than one-way “do-gooding” or paternalism. They also point to the reality that motivations for supporting immigrants are frequently complex. While “transcendent motivation” plays a significant role – people of faith are inspired by an alternative theological vision that helps them to see how things could be more just, and that generates “considerable self-sacrifice and altruism” (Smith Reference Smith1996: 9–12) – other motivations can also be present. People sometimes recognize that they have something to gain, too. A desire for friends or a need to be needed can coexist with recognition of the importance of supporting people who are experiencing injustice.

Evangelical Protestant organizations are also walking in solidarity with unauthorized immigrants. Sojourners, an evangelical interdenominational coalition focused on justice, has taken a leading role in Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. They argue that members “believe in the rule of law, but we also believe that we are to oppose unjust laws and systems that harm and oppress people made in God’s image, especially the vulnerable.” They advocate for federal legislation that includes humane enforcement, reduced times for family reunification, a path to citizenship, expanded legal avenues for immigration, and economic policies that address the root causes of migration, such as economic disparity between sending and receiving nations (Sojourners 2011).

Evangelical Latinos have also been very active, with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) spearheading vigorous lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill and putting out organizing kits for local congregations. In its letter to Congress and then President George Bush, the NHCLC observes with concern how

The letter makes a strong appeal to the importance of the family in sustaining the moral fabric of American society, concluding that it is essential to keep immigrant families together and to recognize the “intellectual, spiritual and economic capital” brought by immigrants to “the American Experience…. Let us protect our borders, protect all our families and thus, protect the American dream” (National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference 2006).

The role of the NHCLC highlights an essential aspect to the involvement of all of these churches: immigrants – authorized and unauthorized – have been at the forefront of advocacy and pastoral care. As agents who manage their experiences of hostility, hope, fear, and joy through a range of strategies, including the negotiation of religious identities and practices, migrants draw on church communities, theology, and prayer in different ways at different times.¹¹ As Charles Hirschman has suggested, religion offers a space in which immigrants can pursue their search for three “Rs” – “refuge, respectability and resources” (2007: 413) – and can help people to become involved in their new communities, socially, economically and politically (Levitt, Reference Levitt2008; Ley Reference Levitt2008; Stepick, Rey, and Mahler Reference Stepick, Rey and Mahler2009). Sometimes, immigrants join an established church; sometimes, they create their own. Far from being passive beneficiaries, therefore, those who live in the United States without legal permission to do so are part of the churches and coalitions making these statements and taking these actions. Immigrants are often where the inspiration for such responses initially emerges.

Jewish and Muslim Responses

Most the work with and on behalf of unauthorized immigrants has been undertaken by Christian FBOs. However, some Jewish and Muslim organizations have also been involved. For instance, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called for comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to legalization and citizenship (Anti-Defamation League 2006). Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, echoed the ADL’s call, drawing parallels between the Jewish history of immigration and the situation of unauthorized immigrants today.

Jewish FBOs, including ADL, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the American Jewish Committee, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have also been highly critical of SB 1070 in Arizona. In the words of Rabbi Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center: “This isn’t about immigration, it’s about discrimination. We should not forget that we’re a nation of immigrants. This law makes no sense – it guarantees and stigmatizes people of color as second-class citizens and exposes them to intimidation and the use of racial profiling as a weapon of bias.”¹³ Gideon Aronoff, president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society adds: “We are all Americans, we are all our brothers’ keepers. We have an obligation not to stand by when legislation so harmful is put through” (Apter Reference Apter2010). Along the same lines, Reform Rabbis of Arizona sent a letter to Governor Jan Brewer stating: “Over the centuries, Jews have known the predicament of being ‘strangers in strange lands’…. The mandates of both our Jewish moral and American civic traditions compel us to adamantly oppose this legislation and to call for its immediate repeal.”¹⁴ Meanwhile, the ADL has filed an amicus brief in the Justice Department lawsuit against SB 1070, characterizing the bill as “ill-conceived and misguided.”

Understandably, Muslim organizations have been focusing more on the fallout of the USA Patriot Act, which has made Muslim communities vulnerable to suspicion, intolerance, harassment, civil rights violations, and religious profiling. Thus the interventions of Muslim FBOs have concentrated on the link that some nativists make between “illegal” immigration and Muslim terrorists (Stokols 2011). Sociologist Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (Reference Hondagneu-Sotelo2008) observes that, in contrast to Christian and Jewish FBOs working on immigration, Muslim organizations tend to shy away from using explicit religious language to address the issue. This has to do with the difficult place of Islam in post-9/11 America. Christians and Jews operate with the conviction that “their religions are acceptable in the public sphere. They do not encounter the fear, hatred, and suspicion of their religions as Muslims do. Not only are their religions acceptable, but they are respected, revered, can be used strategically to garner moral legitimacy and authority. They know this and use this knowledge” (Hondagneu-Sotelo Reference Hondagneu-Sotelo2008: 176).

However, despite the focus on the rise of xenophobia and religious intolerance and the hesitancy to voice their concerns in explicit religious language, Muslim groups such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Islamic Circle of North America, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council have also addressed the issue of unauthorized immigration, actively supporting the passage of the DREAM Act. The rationale for this support has been couched in economic and cultural terms: “the DREAM Act will create opportunities for shared prosperity.” In addition, Imam Mohamed Magid, president of ISNA, stressed that immigrant children who were brought at a very young age to America by their parents without proper authorization have been raised as Americans: “They listen to the same music, play the same football.”¹⁵

More research needs to be undertaken into the advocacy and outreach of non-Christian FBOs around the issue of unauthorized immigration. This research will allow us to identify differences and similarities across religious traditions in the goals, strategies, religious symbols, and the kinds of alliances involved. More specifically, it will enable us to understand why Christians have been at the forefront of protests and pastoral action – particularly when compared to Muslims. Do Muslims mainly identify as Muslims rather than migrants because that is the primary way in which they are subjectivized as Others? Is it perhaps harder or riskier for Muslims to voice their concerns in the public sphere about any issue, including their legal immigrant status, when many are simply trying to avoid any attention, most of which tends to be negative?

Although research may be limited at this point, it is clear that Jewish and Muslim responses are important in the context of a growing interfaith coalition advocating for comprehensive and humane immigration reform.¹⁶

Views from the Pews: Survey Data

Competing theological and moral languages are accompanied by divergent attitudes on the ground. The extent to which the normative position of leaders in the Catholic Church, Evangelical churches, and mainline Protestantism connects with, let alone influences, people in the pews is subject to debate. A 2009 Zogby poll of likely voters in religious communities found a “huge divide between rank-and-file Jews and Christians and many of their leaders.” According to Steven Camarota (Reference Camarota2009), “[t]he public statements of Christian and Jewish leaders make it plain that they believe that legalization is the only moral option. In contrast, their members seem to feel that enforcing the law and causing illegal immigrants to return home is the best option. Presumably community members see enforcement as moral in a way that leaders do not.”

For example, among Roman Catholics, 64 percent of those polled supported enforcement versus only 23 percent who supported legalization. These percentages were virtually the same for mainline Protestants. Only among Jews is the support for conditional legalization (40 percent) roughly equivalent with support for enforcement (43 percent). A great majority of “born-again” Protestants (73 percent) were in favor of enforcement, with only 12 percent indicating support for legalization.

The Zogby poll numbers stand in stark contrast with the findings of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), which conducted a survey among Ohio and Arkansas residents. This survey found that “nearly 9-in-10 Arkansas and Ohio residents, like Americans overall, support an earned path to citizenship for illegal immigrants (85% Ohio, 87% Arkansas, and 86% America), which is one of the key provisions of comprehensive immigrant reform” (Public Religion Research Institute 2010).

The PRRI supplemented its survey with four focus groups among “politically moderate” white Protestant and Catholic voters in Columbus, Ohio, finding “significant differences in attitudes toward immigration between Catholics, whose initial impressions were mostly positive and grounded in their own families’ immigration stories, and Protestants, whose initial impressions were more likely to be negative and associated with images like day laborers looking for work at a Home Depot parking lot” (Public Religion Research Institute 2010).

Another survey by the Pew Research Center, while not showing the “huge divide” between the religious leaders and church members documented by the Zogby poll, indicated that “large segments of the public – including many Catholics, mainline Protestants and evangelicals – harbor serious concerns about immigrants and immigration” (Smith Reference Smith2006). While 52 percent of all Americans agreed with the statement that “immigrants are an economic burden because they take our jobs, housing, and health care,” significantly higher numbers of Christians did – 64 percent of white Evangelical Protestants, 52 percent of white mainline Protestants, and 56 of white non-Hispanic Catholics.²⁰ The Pew Research Center survey also shows that despite the proimmigrant statements issued by religious leaders, attitudes of rank-and-file Christians toward legalization have tended to mirror those of the general public. Nevertheless, the survey did find that the high frequency of church attendance correlates with more favorable views of immigrants and immigration. Thus the study concludes that “the most religiously committed Americans tend to hold views that are more favorable toward immigrants. While church shepherds may not be getting through to all their flock, they may have better luck reaching their most attentive parishioners” (Public Religion Research Institute 2010).

Despite clear discrepancies in their findings, what these surveys show is that religious communities are just as divided on the issue of immigration reform as Americans at large. This persistent division suggests that much work remains to be done to bring about a convergence of views from the pulpit and the pews. In the PRRI focus groups, the majority of the participants readily agreed that the current immigration system is broken. However, “they had little concrete knowledge of how it was broken. When participants heard stories about the hardships of becoming a citizen, ideas shifted in a more supportive direction.” Moreover, “nearly all participants were wary of hearing about a political issue such as immigration reform from the pulpit, but they were open to clergy leadership in discussion or informational settings. Very few had heard anything about immigration reform at church, and nearly all were unaware of any official position of their denomination on the issue.” Finally, focus group participants were skeptical that if unauthorized immigrants were given a path to citizenship, they would “‘put their whole being’ into being here” (Public Religion Research Institute 2010).

It remains to be seen whether the November 2012 elections, in which Latinos and other immigrant minorities supported President Obama in record numbers, making a difference in key swing states such as Colorado, Nevada, Virginia, and Florida, will lead to a shift in public opinion toward immigration reform and, particularly, toward unauthorized immigrants. Certainly, many high-profile Republicans who were proponents of an enforcement-only policy have called for a new approach that does not automatically criminalize and demonize unauthorized immigrants and does not reduce the complex challenges of legalization to the emotionally charged word amnesty. Furthermore, exit polls from the November 2012 elections indicated a shift among U.S. voters toward greater support for comprehensive immigration reform, with 65 percent of American voters (and 51 percent of Republican voters) supporting a path to legal status, rather than deportation, for most unauthorized immigrants.²¹ Giving voice to the changing climate, former President George W. Bush, whose efforts at immigration reform in 2007 were scuttled by fierce resistance from rank-and-file Republicans, stated that “[a]s our nation debates the proper course of action relating to immigration … I hope we do so with a benevolent spirit and keep in mind the contributions of immigrants.” He continued, “not only do immigrants help build our economy, they invigorate our soul” (Preston Reference Preston2012b).

FBOs can seize the current movement of self-reflection, changing the perceptions of those in the pews not only by facilitating awareness of and engagement with the official statements of their respective denominations, but also by offering the opportunity for face-to-face encounter between immigrants and the native born.

Faith-Based Organizations and the Transformative Power of Encounter

Surveys and statements by national religious organizations do not always capture the crucial work that FBOs do on the ground. Particularly in regions of the country most hostile to unauthorized immigrants, religious congregations are emerging as safe and morally inflected spaces where immigrants and the native born can encounter each other, learning about each other’s histories, yearnings, and dreams and building deep, affective bonds (Marquardt et al. Reference Marquardt, Steigenga, Williams and Vasquez2011).²²

St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church located in Cobb County, Georgia, one of the most notoriously antiimmigrant regions of the Southeast, is a case in point. Between 2000 and 2007, as the area surrounding the church experienced significant demographic shifts, St. Thomas transitioned from being a majority white American parish to being a parish in which 43 percent of members were Latino immigrants – largely of Mexican origin, and largely unauthorized. Initially, many longtime members of the parish and parish staff expressed frustration and disappointment with their church’s extraordinary growth and diversification. Expressing this frustration in a 2007 focus group interview with members of the parish staff, one asked: “How do you become one St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church when within the walls are two faith communities that don’t just not [sic] speak the same language, but we almost have a different understanding of our faith life?”

Shortly after this interview, a small group of volunteers at the church contacted the offices of the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta, seeking assistance to address the growing tensions between the church’s Spanish-speaking and English-speaking congregations, and to overcome the misunderstandings that many members of the English-speaking congregation had about unauthorized immigration. Archdiocesan representatives suggested, as a first step, a series of meetings in which information could be shared and in which immigrants and the native born could gather around tables and get to know one another.

As the pastor of the church explained, the goal of the events was “first, to help us to respond as a gospel people, to be who we call ourselves to be. But I think it’s also … introducing a venue or opportunity to … change some of their thinking.” Their strategy was simple. One member explained,

Using the materials provided by the Justice for Immigrants campaign, the parish held a series of informational meetings, and the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking members of the parish began to develop friendships and build common projects at the church.

Travelers Together, the program they initiated around tables in the social hall of the church, has developed a model for addressing tension and conflict, not only within the church, but also in the county and the nation, as participants are encouraged to become involved in political advocacy campaigns for comprehensive immigration reform. While some participants in the program have resisted the “conversion of heart” advocated by the church’s pastor, most have responded positively to the campaign, and the outcome has been several innovative initiatives, including an annual Holy Week Pilgrimage for Immigrants attended by several hundred members of the Church. The simple act of building friendships between unauthorized immigrants and citizens, across boundaries of class, ethnicity, and citizenship, tends to foster a deeper awareness of the theological and scriptural underpinnings of official statements by religious leaders; a willingness and desire to understand the U.S. immigration system; and the motivation to take public action and advocate for comprehensive immigration reform.