In community after community across Nebraska and the Great Plains, people agree that local families need help reuniting, that family breadwinners need clear legal status while they are working, living, and paying taxes in our area, and that we should provide a pathway to citizenship for our newest neighbors.
The coming months bring an historic opportunity to accomplish comprehensive reform of our national immigration laws. The public deserves a reasoned and substantive debate about how to mend a broken immigration system that continues to separate families, divide communities, punish hardworking individuals who help form the engine of our local and national economy, and entrench a two-tiered system of those with legal status and those without. As the discussion heats up, however, anti-immigrant groups with easy slogans are trying to sway a public that is often unfamiliar with the complexities of the immigration system. Against this backdrop, it is essential that we amplify the local voices who speak to the principles of justice, tolerance, and integration on which our nation is built.
Fremont's Anti-Immigrant Local Ordinance
A small handful of towns around the country - now including Fremont, Nebraska - have passed local ordinances that attempt to regulate federal immigration law. Whatever their intent, it is clear that these laws have many negative effects on local communities, including high costs and a climate of increasing hostility and suspicion.
To read Fremont residents' descriptions of their town since the passage of the local ordinance, see our Voices from Fremont blog series: Week One | Week Two | Week Three
RESOURCES FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM
www.reformimmigrationforamerica.org English
www.reformamigratoriaproamerica.org Español
United Methodist Faith Curriculum on Immigrants & Immigration
This curriculum has been extracted from the National Farm Worker Ministry packet Blessing the Hands to be used by the Micah Corps and for use by the Nebraska United Methodist faith community.
There are six class sessions, each approximately 45-60 minutes long. The Micah Corps hopes that your group will use all of them; however the curriculum is designed so that a group can use Session 1 and as many others as desired.
Nebraska Faith Leaders and Public Call for Action on Immigration Reform This Year
Yesterday, we were honored to take part in a powerful event highlighting the continuing urgency for immigration reform. A large gathering of prominent local leaders from diverse faith traditions held a prayer vigil with people of faith and good will calling for the humane treatment of all immigrant families and a workable immigration policy to help us all move forward together. See photos.
Dozens of faith leaders participated in Omaha and other locations around the state to lift up the protection of immigrants and their families, the unity of Nebraska communities, and to pray for moral leadership from Nebraska’s Congressional leaders and President Obama. Read More...
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Detention in America series: Careless Detention | System of Neglect
As Tighter Immigration Policies Strain Federal Agencies, The Detainees in Their Care Often Pay a Heavy Cost
In this series of articles, Washington Post reporters Dana Priest (Walter Reed Army Medical Center report) and Amy Goldstein examine the treatment of detainees as well as the alarming number of detainee deaths in ICE detention centers.
Enormous Local Effort Fails to Prevent Outside Anti-Immigrant Proposal
Lincoln panel discusses immigration law issues
Revealing the Costs of a Broken System: What Happens to Children After Immigration Raids?
Darcy Tromanhauser