Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Group asks congregations to aid immigrants

Another story about the sanctuary the churches are giving to immigrants. DP

Effort to house illegal workers at churches is growing

By TOM HEINEN

jsonline.com: A Milwaukee immigrant-rights group is asking area churches, synagogues and mosques to offer financial and moral support - including sheltering illegal immigrants facing deportation - to a small but growing effort known as the New Sanctuary Movement.

Voces de la Frontera is contacting 30 congregations, some denominations and groups such as Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope.

Churches in several cities nationally have begun sheltering immigrants. And at least one church here - Cristo Rey Lutheran Church, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation on the south side - has indicated a willingness to do so, said Joanne Lange, a local coordinator for Voces.

The Rev. Carlos Aranda, its pastor, voiced support for the effort Saturday in front of more than 100 people at a gathering at Prince of Peace Parish, a Catholic congregation on the near south side. It was part of a multicity Wisconsin Reality Tour by Voces to call attention to immigration issues.

"I think it is a critical development in the immigrant rights movement," Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director and founder of Voces, said of the sanctuary movement.

"It's picking up on the tradition and experience of the 1980s Central American refugee movement," Ortiz said. "But it really is sending a strong message to our federally elected leaders that, in the absence of their leadership and their solution, people of conscience are not going to stand by and let other people suffer and be persecuted because Congress is not willing to step forward and change these unjust laws. It is showing that U.S. citizens and the religious community - again, people of conscience - will stand up."
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.

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