Statement on Immigration Reform
(Approved 7/19/06)

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The Interfaith Alliance of the Bluegrass calls upon our national elected officials to enact comprehensive immigration reform legislation that establishes a safe and humane immigration system. We call upon the Kentucky General Assembly to enact laws and Kentucky administrators to adopt policies that protect immigrants' rights and help integrate immigrants into our society.

Our diverse faith traditions teach us to welcome the stranger. We value all human beings and respect each person's dignity. We support measures that will ameliorate conditions of uncertainty, confusion, fear and exploitation experienced by Kentucky's immigrants, including those who live and work here without legal authorization. Our state relies increasingly on the labor of immigrants from developing countries. The hard and sometimes unpleasant work that these immigrants do has earned our respect.

Unfortunately, current immigration laws permit too few foreign workers to enter the country legally to meet the economy's needs. In the absence of legal immigration avenues, many people from Mexico, Central America, and elsewhere have entered Kentucky's workforce covertly. Many in this underclass of "unauthorized" men, women, and children suffer greatly. They make costly and harrowing attempts to enter the U.S. Each year over 400 die while trying to enter the U.S. Inside the U.S. immigrant families live in constant fear of deportation. After being brought to Kentucky by their parents, many immigrant children grow up speaking only English and are dogged by fear that they, their parents, and their younger, U.S. born/U.S. citizen siblings will suddenly be deported to a country that is completely foreign to them.

This nightmare must end. Immigration laws need to be changed to ensure that enough foreign workers to meet the economy's needs are permitted to enter the U.S. legally. To guarantee both their own well being and that of the U.S.-born workforce, foreign workers must labor under humane conditions and receive reasonable wages. Because the U.S. experience with temporary worker programs has been fraught with abuses, we call for a temporary worker program that:

• includes a path to permanent residency
• promotes family unity by allowing immediate family members to join the worker
• allows workers to change employers
• provides the same labor protections that apply to U.S. workers
• includes enforcement mechanisms and resources to protect workers' rights
• ensures wages and benefits that do not undercut domestic workers
• allows workers to travel between the U.S. and their homeland, and within the U.S.
• includes labor-market surveys to ensure U.S. workers are not harmed

Immigrants living and working in the U.S. without authorization should be offered opportunities to regularize their status. This regularization can be accomplished through a phased "earned legalization" program requiring individuals to work, pay fines and income taxes, stay out of trouble and cooperate with the U.S. Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services (O.C.I.S.).

We are a nation with a long, rich tradition of welcoming newcomers. In recent years, however, immigrants have been subject to laws and policies that debase our country's fundamental commitment to individual liberties and due process. These laws and policies, including detention for months without charges, secret hearings, and ethnic profiling, signal a change in our government's policies and attitudes towards immigrants. Government policies that unfairly and inappropriately confuse immigration with terrorism do not make us safer, but instead tarnish our heritage and damage our standing abroad. We urge our government make sure that our immigration laws and policies are consistent with due process rights.