[The Episcopal News] — The Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders (LACRL) today demanded an immediate end to federal roundups of immigrant workers and called for policy reform including regularization of some 12 million undocumented workers resident in the United States before asylee admissions spiked.
Full text of the LACRL statement — endorsed by 13 faith leaders and drafted by Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop John Harvey Taylor — follows here.
Stop the Cruel Workplace Roundups Now
A Statement by the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders
As faith leaders representing a substantial percentage of the Southern California population, we join in condemnation of the Trump administration’s cruel workplace roundups in our region and all over the country.
The roundups are un-American and un-Godly. According to press accounts and our direct observation, they violate the law of the land by singling out people based on the color of their skin. They also violate the law of heaven, the divine commandment to respect the dignity of every human being.
We represent many traditions, and we follow many paths. But we agree on one thing today. According to everything we believe and know about what is sacred, all people deserve to be treated with kindness. Heaven scorns anyone who takes pleasure in cruelty.
We understand the politics of this issue. We understand that the large number of asylees admitted to our country in recent years, as they fled economic and political chaos in Central America, created an opportunity for those who realized they could win power by scapegoating all immigrants of color. We also understand the need to get asylum admissions under control.
But this administration makes no distinction between asylee applicants and long-term residents. It also intentionally blurs the distinction between the tiny fraction who have committed crimes and the millions who do jobs our citizens won’t while caring for their families and paying their taxes. These workers are said to number about 12 million.
This administration is sacrificing these, our neighbors, on the anvil of official hate, hammering them, sometimes literally as they lay powerless on the pavement, to meet brutal, inhumane quotas measured in human bodies. This government sends masked men, often refusing to identify themselves, to grab them off the streets, out of their vehicles, or out of the stores and factories where they earned their living and send them to poorly provisioned detention centers, leaving their spouses and children weeping in their wake.
These roundups are scarring the soul of the greatest nation on earth. They are beneath us. They dim the very light of freedom and justice. They make Lady Liberty in New York Harbor bow in shame.
We call on the administration to stop rounding up immigrant workers who have committed no crime other than technical violations of immigration laws and regulations. These roundups should stop immediately.
We also call on the President and Congress to set aside their differences and enact comprehensive immigration reform. Their first priority must be the regularization of the 12 million undocumented workers who were here before the spike in asylee admissions. They should also find humane solutions to the overwhelmed asylum system and immediately restore the need-based refugee resettlement program that was the hallmark of Republican and Democratic administrations for decades.
We do not demand the 12 million be made citizens. We only demand that our government stop abusing these workers and their families for politics’ sake. A nation pledged to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should not torture those whom United States enterprises have freely offered employment – agricultural workers, medical workers, hotel workers, construction workers, food-service workers, domestic workers, landscape workers, factory workers, and office workers. Everyone reading this message will have relied in one way or another on the labor of one of these workers.
We repudiate those who claim that calls for common sense immigration reform amount to a call for open borders. We do not favor open borders. We favor courageous leadership that takes the risk of decency and humanity. We denounce cowardly leadership that engages in cruelty for cruelty’s sake.
Mr. President, stop making us a nation of users, scapegoating immigrant workers while depending on their hard, honest work. In the name of all that is decent, in the name of the founders of our country, in the name of the United States Constitution, and in the name of the Most High God, we demand that you stop your cruel workplace roundups now. Make America proud again.
Signed:
Rabbi Sarah Hronsky
President, Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders
Immediate Past President, Board of Rabbis of Southern California
The Rt. Rev. John Harvey Taylor (principal drafter)
Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles
Bishop Brenda Bos
Southwest California Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Bishop Francine A. Brookins
Presiding Prelate, Fifth Episcopal District
African Methodist Episcopal Church
Rev. Linda Culbertson
General Presbyter
Presbytery of the Pacific, PCUSA
Archbishop Hovnan Derderian
Primate, Western Diocese of the
Armenian Church in North America
Bishop Dottie Escobedo-Frank
Resident Bishop
The California-Conference of
The United Methodist Church
Randolph Dobbs
External Affairs
Los Angeles Bahá’í Center
Bishop Grant Hagiya
Co-President of the Claremont School of Theology,
Past Resident Bishop of the California-Pacific
Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church
Bishop Charley Hames, Jr.
Presiding Prelate, Ninth Episcopal District
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
Nirinjan Singh Khalsa
Executive Director, California Sikh Council
The Sikh Community of Southern California
Pastor William D. Smart, Jr.
Co-Pastor, Christian Liberation Ministries
President/CEO, Southern Christian Leadership
Conference – Southern California
Rt. Rev. Alexei Smith
Ecumenical & Interreligious Officer
Archdiocese of Los Angeles
(Media inquiries: media@ladiocese.org)