Immigration Policy and the Christian Right
Tanya Erzen printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Fri May 19, 2006 at 04:11:27 PM EST
[ editor's note: this story was originally published Thursday May 4, 2006 ]

On Monday May 1st, thousands of people demonstrated in cities across the United States against immigration legislation that would increase security at the border and make merely living in the United States a felony for illegal workers.   A few days before, on Thursday April 27th, the Family Research Council  sponsored the conference Faith, Culture, and Law in the Immigration Debate.

The rationale behind the conference was to gauge conservative Christian responses to what Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC) calls, "the immigration crisis" and to apply a "Judeo-Christian worldview" to public policy issues.  

The panelists included Senator Sam Brownback and Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado. Representative Tancredo chairs the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, and he is a hero to groups like the Minutemen Project, an anti-immigration citizen group that patrols the borders to deter illegal immigrants.   According to Tancredo,

We send troops thousands of miles away to fight terrorists, but we refuse to put the