Please note that the following letter was an organizational sign-on letter sent by a number of IIC members to Senators. This letter is not a statement of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition (IIC) and only speaks for the organizations listed.
IIC members have also released their own alerts and statements on the Corker-Hoeven border security amendment.
June 24, 2013
Dear Senator,
We, the undersigned representatives of the faith community, urge you to oppose the Corker-Hoeven amendment. We believe this amendment fundamentally alters the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act and would have negative implications for border communities and our immigrant brothers and sisters. We urge you to oppose this amendment, and to instead support a process that allows for crucial improvements to the text of S.744 as it stood before the Corker-Hoeven amendment was filed on Friday June 21, 2013.
The legislation that emerged from the Judiciary Committee mark-up and currently sits before the full Senate represents months of negotiations by a bi-partisan group of Senators. This package included from the beginning provisions that would further militarize already stressed border communities. In light of our faith traditions and the experience of our congregations along the border, these original provisions were difficult to accept, but we acknowledged that this was a compromise piece of legislation, including many provisions that will be positive for our undocumented community members. However, the new language introduced in the Senate through the Corker-Hoeven amendment represents an abrupt departure from humane and fair immigration reform and will have drastic consequences for our communities.
The Corker-Hoeven amendment doubles down on unnecessary and excessive border militarization provisions. This legislation would mandate 20,000 more Border Patrol agents and hundreds of miles of additional pedestrian fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, all at a cost of 38 billion dollars, funded in part by sharply increasing the fees paid by those applying for visas to visit, work or migrate to the United States. This is in addition to the stringent border security metrics already required in S.744. At a time when we collectively face difficult budgetary decisions, this additional expenditure is a poor choice of resource management, particularly while Senators continue to block measures that would allow access to crucial benefits for low-income immigrants.
Faith communities along the border have already expressed serious concerns about the border security provisions within S.744; we must not further create an atmosphere of militarization and division among the communities of millions of Americans on the border in order to garner a few more votes on a piece of legislation that likely already has the support needed for passage in the Senate.
We reject the political calculus that equates more votes and a more stringent bill with passage in the House of Representatives. As recently as last week, the House’s failure to pass the Farm bill demonstrated that a large vote margin in the Senate does not necessarily increase the chances of successful passage in the House.
Furthermore, the process that has been proposed to move this legislation forward wrongly excludes other amendments that would improve the bill. The consideration of these important amendments—to address root causes of our broken immigration system, allow young children to access the path to citizenship expeditiously, protect workers, reunite families, and ensure that National Guard men and women who are deployed to the border are adequately trained—should be a priority. The so-called “border-surge” provisions in the Corker-Hoeven amendment undermine the principle of humane enforcement and are an unnecessary and exorbitant use of resources. As recent history has taught us, these measures will likely ultimately result in more civil and human rights abuses and increase border deaths as migrants undertake more treacherous and remote journeys to reunite with loved ones and seek to improve their lives.
To be clear: the faith community has always supported and will continue to support a humane approach to immigration reform that creates a path to citizenship for our undocumented community members. However, the Corker-Hoeven amendment undermines such reform and would cause irreparable harm to our border communities and their fragile ecosystems and would further erode civil and human rights at our southern frontier.
We urge all Senators to oppose this amendment, and to instead support a process that allows for crucial improvements to the text of S.744 as it stood before the Corker-Hoeven amendment was filed on Friday June 21, 2013.
Sincerely,
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Disciples Home Missions
Church World Service
Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach
Conference of Major Superiors of Men Disciples
Justice Action Network
The Episcopal Church
Franciscan Action Network
Ignatian Solidarity Network
Interfaith Worker Justice
Leadership Conference of Women Religious
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Washington Office
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
U.S. Jesuit Conference
United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries
United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society
