MCC Washington Memo

On July 12, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and the Interfaith Immigration Coalition (IIC) held a press conference to announce the DREAM Sabbath.  Among the faith leaders in attendance was Dr. Fred Kniss, Provost, Eastern Mennonite University.

The DREAM Act Sabbath is a faith-based campaign in which the faith community will encourage congregations and individuals to focus a worship service, or part of a worship service, on the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act provides undocumented students with a chance to earn legal status if they came to the US as children, are long-term U.S. residents, have good moral character and complete two years of college or military service. The campaign will begin September 18 and run through October 9 at churches, synagogues and mosques around the country.

At the press conference, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, President of The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the largest Latino Christian organization in America strongly advocated for passage of the DREAM Act, saying, “Without a doubt, Christ stood committed to the care and protection of the most vulnerable, especially children. To continue to punish these children is nothing less than anti-Christian, anti-American and morally reprehensible.”

More about DREAM Sabbath | MCC DREAM resources

I know my dad is not a criminal… He just was working hard to provide my family food and shelter. There are lots of other kids like us in my town who are missing their dads, too. This needs to stop.

This quote comes from the 7-year-old daughter of a man picked up in a recent immigration raid in Fort Morgan, Colorado.  According to an article in the Denver Post, those picked up at a local dairy were not dangerous criminals (as Immigration and Customs Enforcement is supposed to be targeting) but were accused only of immigration-related violations.

Read more | Washington Memo – Immigration Policy | more resources

Larry Tebo/Elkhart Truth

About 400 people attended an immigration dialogue last night in Goshen, Indiana. Goshen College History Professor Steve Nolt began the discussion by giving a brief history of immigration in the U.S.  Then, Saulo Padilla, director of the Office on Immigration Education for Mennonite Central Committee, and Bob Schrameyer, director and co-founder of Citizens for Immigration Law Enforcement (CILE), responded with their views on the topic. The dialogue lasted two-and-a-half hours.

Read more | immigration resources

From the New York Times:

The University of San Francisco will award an honorary doctorate at graduation ceremonies on Friday to an illegal immigrant, Isabel Castillo, 26, of Harrisonburg, Va., who has been a leading advocate for passage of the Dream Act. The legislation would give legal status to people like her, who were brought to the United States at a young age and went on to attend college. Ms. Castillo came to the United States from Mexico at age 6; she graduated with honors from Eastern Mennonite University. Stephen A. Privett, the president of the University of San Francisco, said he decided to award the degree after reading about Ms. Castillo in the On Education column in The New York Times earlier this year. He said the university wanted to “underscore the fundamental unfairness of our denying a path to citizenship to some of the most motivated college students in the country.”

DREAM act resources | immigration resources