SACRAMENTO, Calif.—In response to recent developments on Capitol Hill regarding new, proposed immigration legislation, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez issues the following statement:
“Wherever you stand on the issue of our nation’s outdated and broken immigration policy, I regard the newest proposal presented to Congress as a positive development in that it highlights our desperate need for an immigration overhaul.
“While I have many disagreements with the current proposal, I am hopeful it will spur Congress to act with urgency to pass comprehensive immigration reform. As the NHCLC has long advocated, any legislation that has a realistic chance of garnering bipartisan support must not only address future legal immigrants and guest workers, but must also provide permanent legal protection for DREAMers and other hardworking, God fearing immigrant families whose lives are already inextricably linked to America – such as Pastor Noe Carias. Any proposal that does one without the other, falls well short of the goal.
“As the debate moves forward — and it must — we should never limit ourselves to an ‘either or’ mentality. We must instead always balance security with compassion, the rule of law with a spirit of generosity. This is who we are, and always have been, as Americans.”
###
Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. 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.
NHCLC/CONEL is the world’s largest Hispanic Christian organization. It serves as a representative voice for the more than 100 million Hispanic Evangelicals assembled in over 40,000 U.S. churches and another 500,000 congregations spread throughout the Spanish-speaking diaspora.
Website | www.nhclc.org Twitter | @nhclc
