Monday, March 15, 2010

Clergy to Cornyn: We've got your back

FYI the Obama plate sloppeth over.

The Houston Chronicle is a Leftist Rag like most US newspapers today. Sen Jon Cornyn, not one of my favorite people for other reasons not immigration reform related, I'm sure did sit and listen, but not agree.

Steve
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By RICK CASEY
HOUSTON CHRONCLE
March 14, 2010, 6:24PM
Share Print Share Del.icio.usDiggTwitterYahoo! BuzzFacebookStumbleUponWhen U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and his aides walked into Cardinal Daniel DiNardo's conference room at the Catholic Chancery one afternoon three weeks ago to talk about immigration reform, they were greeted by the archbishop, Lutheran Bishop Michael Rinehart and a dozen rabbis and clergy members from a variety of denominations.

They were also greeted by about 6,000 postcards piled in stacks on the large conference table around which the group would sit.

The men of the cloth wanted to talk to him about what they see as the biblical and moral imperative of immigration reform. But they also wanted to send a practical political message.

At a time when anger is the currency of the political realm, much of it aimed at illegal immigrants, the religious leaders were saying to Cornyn that they will have his back if he risks becoming a target of that anger by helping craft and pass comprehensive immigration reform.

The meeting and the postcards are part of a number of organized movements bubbling up around the country, a stirring that led President Barack Obama this week to hold meetings with two senators, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and some immigration activist groups to reassert his commitment to reform.

The church- and synagogue-based community organization TMO has been working with churches in the area for more than a year to educate members on the painful realities of immigration. Presentations include experts like veteran immigration attorney Charles Foster, who was working with President George W. Bush on an immigration reform law when 9/11 doomed it.

Foster is fond of explaining to people that to tell illegal immigrants to go home and get in line doesn't deal with the fact that about 10 million of them would be getting into a line that moves at a pace of 5,000 a year, many leaving citizen spouses and children here as they did so.

Cornyn told DiNardo and the other religious leaders, as he has repeatedly said in public, that it is up to Obama to make immigration reform a priority. He also noted that he had expected to hear from Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who has been working with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on crafting a bill.

At that point members of the group, who were impressed with Cornyn's grasp of immigration issues, decided to challenge him. Why should a senator from Texas be waiting on New York and South Carolina to craft a bill?

“We appealed to his Texas pride,” said Rinehart.

After all, Texas has the longest border with Mexico and a great deal of experience and accumulated wisdom from dealing with immigrants from the south.

What's more, Cornyn is the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee's Immigration, Refugees and Border Security subcommittee.

Could he initiate a meeting with Schumer and Graham?

It wasn't much to ask, and Cornyn met with Schumer about a week later. He wanted to see the draft language Schumer and Graham had worked up.

According to a Cornyn staffer, he learned that there is no draft yet.

But Cornyn had already warned the group that a bill would not be passed this year.

That was set when Graham announced after meeting with Obama that efforts on immigration were dead if the president insisted on passing health care reform by a simple majority in the Senate.

But several of the religious leaders who met with Cornyn said they were glad to see the conversation begin in Washington again. And they plan to keep it going in their churches, building an ever larger constituency for reform.

“It's a Bible witness,” said Rinehart. “You shall love the stranger and treat him like a citizen.”

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