Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio paraded 220 chained undocumented immigrants in front of cameras down a Phoenix street.

Advocates for Immigrants Urge Reform, not Raids

KANSAS CITY (By Meredith Rodriguez, Kansas City Star ) February 20. 2009 — Two weeks ago, in a move that incensed civil rights groups, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio paraded 220 chained undocumented immigrants in front of cameras down a Phoenix street.

Monday morning, in front of Kansas City’s new immigration court on Grand Boulevard, five men, shackled and dressed in striped prison gear, re-enacted the event in silent protest while 100 religious leaders encircled them.

“We are marching in the light of God,” they sang. “We are marching in the light of God.”

Carrying signs urging “Reform, not raids,” Presbyterians, Catholics, Universal Unitarians, Quakers and Methodists, among other denominations, came together to call on Congress and the president for immigration reform. Similar vigils were held across the country on Presidents Day.

The vigil was organized by the Interfaith Justice Advocacy Movement, an organization that advocates on behalf of undocumented immigrants by appealing to faith values. Vigil organizers called for infusing compassion in the immigration debate and an end to raids that they say rip apart families.

According to the interfaith group, 33,000 immigrants are detained in the U.S. on any given day, and 3.1 million children who are citizens have at least one undocumented parent. The group refers to these immigrants as “economic refugees” and say they are unjustly treated as criminals for sacrificing to feed their families.

“In the midst of abundance, human beings are suffering. In the midst of enough, human beings face scarcity. In the midst of family values, families are being torn apart. In the midst of a country rooted in immigration, immigrants are being denied dignity, respect and a chance for life,” the Rev. Donna Chavez of Argentine United Presbyterian Church said in a litany.

“You shall love the stranger as you love yourself,” the group responded, “for you were once strangers in a foreign land.”

The Rev. Larry Keller of St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Overland Park equated their faith-based battle to the civil rights movement. He prayed for a Hispanic Martin Luther King Jr. to challenge the status quo and push toward a more moral and humane immigration system.

Keller said faith activists must be patient when working with the new administration toward systematic change. But in time, their pleas for justice will be heard, he said.