WASHINGTON (BP)–Immigration reform remains stymied as Congress nears its final month of work before the fall election.
Members of Congress appear to have made no progress in finding a way forward on an issue that has sharply divided the Senate and House of Representatives. Both houses have begun month-long recesses, with the Senate set to reconvene Sept. 5 and the House Sept. 6. Congressional leaders hope to adjourn by early October, giving members another month to campaign before the Nov. 7 election.
The Senate version, which was adopted in May, includes provisions intended to secure the border with Mexico but also would establish a guest worker program and enable most illegal immigrants to enter a process to become citizens. Some House Republicans and other conservatives have charged it would provide amnesty to those who are in this country illegally.
The House version, which was passed in December, focuses on border security and enforcement against illegal immigrants and those who aid them. Hispanic leaders and Senate Democrats have sharply criticized it as lacking in compassion.
President Bush, meanwhile, pressed Congress again Aug. 3 for a comprehensive solution that would seem to be more in line with the Senate-approved measure.
“I expect [Congress] to do its duty and pass comprehensive immigration reform,” Bush said in a speech on the Texas-Mexico border. “There’s an important debate facing our nation, and the debate is: Can we secure this border and, at the same time, honor our history of being a land of immigrants? And the answer is, absolutely, we can do both. And we will do both.”
Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land has continued to call for a measure that would combine the strongest aspects of both bills. He told a Washington, D.C., interfaith conference on immigration reform it has been helpful for him to think of the issue in terms of the two kingdoms to which Christians belong.
American Christians are citizens of both the United States and heaven, he said.
“[A]s citizens of the nation we have a right to expect the government to have immigration laws that will be enforced,” said Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “If the laws aren’t the right laws, then they need to be changed. And when you have the government just massively ignoring the law, as it has been doing under both Democratic and Republican administrations for many, many years, that erodes the rule of law, and that’s a dangerous thing in any society and certainly something we should be concerned about.
“And as citizens of the heavenly Kingdom,” he told those attending the July 12 event, “we have a responsibility to give a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name; we have a responsibility to act redemptively and compassionately to the strangers in our midst; we have an obligation and responsibility to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, to seek to house the homeless, to feed the hungry and to act compassionately.”
Land decried a provision in the House version that critics say would require those who minister to immigrants to confirm their legal status.
“As a Christian, I have a responsibility to reach out to those in our midst who are hurting, whether they’re legal or not,” he said. “And the provision in the House bill that would potentially criminalize private, charitable behavior toward illegal immigrants is absolutely abominable. It must not become law.”
In an effort to resolve the congressional impasse, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R.-Texas, and Rep. Mike Pence, R.-Ind., unveiled July 25 a proposal that Pence described as a “plan where justice and mercy meet.”
The Hutchison-Pence measure would require the implementation of border security features during the first two years after the legislation is enacted. When that effort is certified as being finished, a “no amnesty temporary worker program” would go into effect.
Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, said in a written commentary that the Hutchison-Pence measure “is a good proposal that gets us out of the deadlock and promotes security and respect for the law in a humane and workable fashion. And it addresses the issues of workers without demonizing them.”
The editors of National Review, however, criticized the plan in an online column, recommending that Congress enact the “consensus” on increased enforcement and postpone other, more divisive issues.
The Senate acted to strengthen border security and, in the process, reversed itself Aug. 2. Senators voted 94-3 to fund the construction of 370 miles of fencing and 461 miles of vehicle barriers on the United States-Mexico border. The vote came less than three weeks after the Senate voted 71-29 against funds for the same work. Senators authorized the border proposal in May without funding it.
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