More than 150 Evangelical leaders sent a letter to President Barack Obama and congressional leaders on Tuesday asking them to pass immigration reform, pronto.
The letter (PDF) reads:
They go on to say, "We are driven by a moral obligation rooted deeply in our faith to address the needs of immigrants in our country."
It's signed by a broad swath of conservative and more liberal evangelical leaders, including Leith Anderson of the National Association of Evangelicals, David Beckmann of Bread for the World, and Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.
The letter requests a meeting with President Obama in the first 92 days of his administration, and with congressional leaders within the first 92 days of the next Congress. The timeline has a biblical reference: the Hebrew word for immigrant, "ger," occurs 92 times in the Bible, according to the letter.
Latino Evangelicals were coveted by both parties in the recent elections, and it seems they helped re-elect President Obama on Nov. 6, casting key votes in battleground states.
The voting power demonstrated by Latinos is driving Republicans to re-evaluate their outreach to this growing demographic group. It's also forcing a discussion of the thus-far elusive comprehensive immigration reform that's become a buzzword within both major political parties.
