President Trump's recent decision to rescind the DREAMERS Act have energized all sectors of the church in the USA in their efforts to ask Congress to settle the status of these children and young Americans. For the majority of Christian leaders in our country, the future of these young people is a gospel issue.
Bellow, you will find a collection of some of the different efforts of the churches and religious organizations. We encourage you to share this resources and programs with your constituents.
Christian Churches Together Statement on Immigration Reform
Esperanza My Neighbor's Rights:
Esperanza is committed to loving our neighbor as ourselves. But who is our neighbor? Esperanza has created a way for your church to do so with the
My Neighbor’s Rights
(MNR)
campaign. MNR is an educational initiative to promote awareness of the civil rights of undocumented immigrants in the United States. We have created a series of useful videos, available on our
website
in both English and Spanish, explaining these rights. We hope you will share these videos with your families, neighbors, and especially with undocumented immigrants who need encouragement and reliable information about their rights.
National Association of Evangelicals
“Americans may have a variety of views on the broader questions of immigration policy, but most agree that those who were brought to this country as children — and who have grown up here — should not be punished for the actions of their parents,” said Leith Anderson, NAE president. “Many of these young people are already deeply integrated into our churches and communities, and most know no other country than the United States.”
Sign-on: Evangelical Leaders Urge White House & Congress to Protect Dreamers:
Interfaith Immigration Coalition
As you know, President Trump has rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and Congress has less than six months to pass the Dream Act to protect 800,000 immigrant youth from deportation.
The Interfaith Immigration Coalition invites people of all faiths to stand in solidarity with immigrant youth by organizing a Dream Sabbath, ideally before the end of October. A Dream Sabbath can be dedicating time during a regular weekly worship service to having immigrant youth share their stories and asking congregants to take action in support of the Dream Act, or it can be a vigil, meeting with your Senators and Representatives, etc.
The Dream Sabbath toolkit can be found
here
(PDF) and
here
(DOC). Please make sure to put your event on this map:
bit.ly/DreamSabbathMap
by the end of October, so we can demonstrate the breadth of support from people of faith across the country. Please share these resources far and wide!