SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Rev. Dr. Samuel Rodriguez, President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, issues the following statement:
“I join with millions of Americans of all political persuasions in expressing my relief that our country’s collective crescendo of horror at seeing families separated at our southern border has led this administration to urgently advance an executive order to keep families intact during processing. Indeed this policy was misguided, poorly communicated to the public, and is anti-American. We must be able to agree on something so simple and so fundamental as keeping families intact whenever it’s in our power to do so.
“That being said, I think once again leaning only on presidential executive orders to fix our failing immigration system would be an egregious mistake that will only create additional crises in the future. Let us not settle for so little when it comes to reform. The NHCLC has been a vocal supporter of border security, even going so far as to supporting a wall should it also mean legislation that provides a legal pathway for Dreamers; bringing the 11 million undocumented immigrants in our country out of the shadows but to the back of the line; and stopping the flow of human trafficking and drug smuggling that plagues our nation. We must stop approaching immigration as an ‘either-or’ decision, but as a ‘both-and.’ We can have border security and compassion. We can have common sense reform that is in the best interest of our citizens that also uplifts the dignity of all human life. Regardless of this executive order or any other narrowly tailored stop-gap measures, the NHCLC calls on Congress to act now on comprehensive immigration reform.”
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Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, executive producer of The Impossible with 20th Century Fox, and bestselling author of “Shake Free” which releases nationwide on May 22, 2018. He has been named by CNN and Fox News as “the leader of the Hispanic Evangelical movement” and TIME Magazine nominated him among the 100 most influential leaders in America.
The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is recognized and identified by Time Magazine, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Christianity Today, Charisma Magazine, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, Fox News and CNN as America’s largest and most influential Hispanic/Latino Christian organization with 40,118 certified member churches in the United States and chapters in Latin America.