Presbyterians take lead on
Arizona immigration protests
The Layman, July 30, 2010
The Presbyterian Church (USA) continues to have a leading role in protesting Arizona’s new law regarding illegal immigrants.
The controversial law, which tightens immigration laws in the border state and grants additional powers to law enforcement, took effect on July 29. A day earlier a federal judge put a preliminary injunction on parts of the law, an action that was appealed by Arizona’s governor. Related Article
Presbyterians in Arizona, and across the country, are adding their voices to the contentious debate.
According to a Christian Post article, the Rev. Trina Zelle, executive director of the Arizona Interfaith Alliance for Worker Justice and pastor of University Presbyterian Church in Tempe, Ariz., participated in an ecumenical prayer rally the day before the law went into effect.
“People are living in fear, afraid to go to work and church, or to leave their home at all. Since April 23, I have heard from people … who have been stopped and had their citizenship challenged on the basis that they’re Hispanic,” Zelle said in a news release. “SB 1070 is dehumanizing and violates our human rights. I believe it grieves God. All of us in Arizona are grateful for the outpouring of support and solidarity from people around the country.”
The organization has called for a mobilization this weekend in major cities across the United States, including marches, prayer vigils, civil disobedience, educational forums and worship services.
PCUSA’s the Rev. Alison Harrington of Southside Presbyterian Church joined an ecumenical prayer vigil earlier this week in advance of the new law taking effect. In the Green Valley News article earlier this month, Harrington called the law “ill-conceived and mean-spirited” and sinful.
Harrington, whose congregation has an active immigrant ministry and a history of activism on their behalf, has warned that the new law jeopardizes its outreach and volunteers.
Harrington echoed those concerns in a Presbyterian News Service article, which quoted several opponents of the new immigration law.
The PCUSA also is speaking out beyond the borders of Arizona. According to the latest edition of Witness in Washington Weekly, from the denomination’s Washington Office, the Rev. J. Herbert Nelson II will be interviewed on PBS’ Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on the topic of immigration. The interview will be shown in part on this Sunday’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly Program.
The denomination’s top leaders also spoke out against the law in the spring through a letter to the U.S. Congress that alleged “bigotry, trauma and fear” as an effect of Arizona’s new law.
That letter has been criticized by some Presbyterians for its use of the word “immigrant” from a yet-to-be released Bible translation for the basis of the stand. But it was affirmed by a majority of the General Assembly’s commissioners in July anyway.
The GA lodged its protest of the new law with a 420-205 vote by the General Assembly to “refrain from holding national meetings in states where travel by immigrant Presbyterians or Presbyterians of color might subject them to harassment due to legislation.” The action has raised questions on what the denomination would do if other states, such as Pennsylvania where the next GA is scheduled for 2012, passed a similar law.
USA Today reports that the PCUSA may be the first and only religious group to officially boycott Arizona travel in protest of the new law.
Speaking on behalf of Presbytery de Cristo in southern Arizona and New Mexico, the Rev. Sue Westfall was critical of the law in a KVOA.com news report. She contends that the law creates racial profiling and will do nothing to help the region’s immigration problem.
“It doesn’t secure the borders. It doesn’t create safe communities. And it doesn’t solve the immigration issue,” said Westfall, who serves as stated clerk of de Cristo. “We’re also getting anecdotal reports of people of color in our Presbyterian churches who are already being asked to show papers. And these are people who are here legally.”
The same article, however, shows that not all Presbyterians are in opposition to the law or Arizona’s approach to managing its illegal immigration woes.
Desert Springs Presbyterian Church pastor the Rev. Steve Cavallaro backs the law and said he believes the PCUSA’s boycott will hurt the wrong people.
“There’s nothing I can see in 1070 that would say it is necessarily an unjust law. The state is just mirroring the federal laws,” he said. “The people you’re hurting (with the boycott) are the people who work in the street, the ordinary hard working citizens trying to pay their bills and feed their kids.”
Desert Springs is a congregation in the more conservative Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
Voices in PCUSA who support the new immigration law, or oppose the recent travel boycott, aren’t nearly as loud or common as the critics. But they do exist.
In response to the same Outlook article, GA commissioner Madeleine Middleton questioned whether her fellow commissioners had even read the law before voting for the boycott.
“I was an elder commissioner from the Arkansas Presbytery and tried in vain to have the plenary listen to me concerning this motion, its (sic) discriminatory wording and blatant (sic) untruth,” Middleton said in a blog post. “When Cynthia Bolbach asked the assembly how many had actually read the Arizona law, fewer than a handful raised their hands. I had!! One young commissioner confessed to this gathering a few moments later that after she had voted for the ‘censure’ of the Arizona law in her committee, she read the actual law itself and wished she could have changed her vote.”
An elder from de Cristo Presbytery posted a comment on The Presbytery Outlook Web site in response to the General Assembly’s action. Signed as “Jim Kaucher,” the blog comment said that the law does not encourage racial profiling, as many of its critics have claimed, and mirrors many existing federal laws on immigration.
“Federal law ALREADY requires non-citizens to carry their immigration documents with them at all times,” the elder wrote. “Arizona’s law does not impose any new legal requirements that do not already exist under federal law. All it does it make illegal, under Arizona law, what is ALREADY illegal under federal law. … Federal agents already have much broader authority to stop people and ask about their immigration status than the Arizona law grants to local law enforcement. A border patro
l agent can stop people and ask for proof of citizenship — without reasonable suspicion. Under Arizona law, there must first be a lawful police ‘stop, detention, or arrest’ AND there must also be reasonable suspicion that the person is not in the country legally. AND the reasonable suspicion cannot be based on the person’s race or ethnicity.”
A May 28 letter to the editor published in The Layman Online echoed a similar sentiment.
“I liken this ridiculous criticism to that which is directed at the Confessing Church Movement, when in fact the three tenets of the movement simply re-state what the denomination already affirmed in our constitution,” said the Rev. Mike Baynai of Grand Rapids, Mich. “May I humbly submit that for all those who find fault with the Arizona law to show their displeasure in a nation-wide campaign of solidarity and sympathy called: Leave Your Garage Door Open Tonight! I think it could be a very powerful statement that there are those out there who are in need and what they need might well be in your garage. While those folks are at it, why not leave your car and home unlocked as well.”