Ministry News

Latino Pastors at Odds Over Immigration Reform

Details

Friday, 24 April 2009 15:13

A group of Latino pastors is taking an unusual approach to immigration reform by urging illegal aliens to boycott the 2010 U.S. census. The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders is calling for undocumented immigrants—many of whom attend the churches represented by the group's 16,000 members—to refuse participation so their information won't be eventually used against them.

"The same data that helps the Latino community to seek political empowerment, the same numbers that are used to show how strong we are and prove our growing numbers, that's the same data the anti-immigrant forces use against us," said the coalition's head, pastor Miguel Rivera. "When we weigh, in the balance, how many benefits the undocumented get by letting themselves be counted, it's more on the side of funding more police officers to arrest them, and more immigration agents to deport them and disrupt families. We can't ask them to do something that is going to bring more sadness to this community."

Rivera's group is facing opposition, however, from other groups representing Latino pastors. "For our communities, the benefits of participating in the census are essential to accurate representation, allocation of resources and to gauge how our community continues to grow," said Wilfredo De Jesus, vice president of social justice for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), which represents 15 million Latino believers and 18,000 churches. Other pastors from the NHCLC echo that sentiment, adding that accurate representation of Hispanics—legally documented or not—will only help to bolster recognition of the Christian values within the Latino community and church.

Although it's required by the Constitution that every person residing in America be counted, boycotting the census isn't a deportable offense but can result in a maximum $100 fine. The problem, Rivera believes, is that those who avoid the count are being used as "guinea pigs to get money for cities" and offered no path to legalization. "We cannot tell our congregants to be patient, cooperative and to trust our government any longer," Rivera added. "We must protect them as God would have it and urge them to protect their families from any further mistreatment."

But Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, believes Rivera's concerns are representative of those who fail to understand the census purpose. Vargas, who is a member of the Decennial Census advisory committee, says there is no connection between the census and immigration reform.

"To the undocumented, and to everybody in the Latino community, we are on a historic path," Vargas said. "I think these pastors understand that; that's why they want to see comprehensive immigration reform. We all want it, but there's probably a more impactful way to get us there than if we have an undercount." [AP, 4/22/09; NHCLC press release, 4/23/09]