Have leaders of non-Christian religious faiths spoken out publicly on the immigration issue in the United States?

August 18, 2012 1:09 PM

Have leaders of non-Christian religious faiths spoken out publicly on the immigration issue in the United States?

Looking for examples (news articles, resolutions, websites, quotes, etc.) of different faith leaders on the U.S. immigration issue. I'm especially interested in leaders of Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism (either national/prominent or local leaders) but others as well. I know of plenty examples of Christian faith leaders, so I am looking for beyond that.

posted by quodlibet to religion & philosophy (3 answers total)

Rabbis of the Reform branch of Judaism have traditionally been outspoken on these kinds of issues. Here is a PDF statement from the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, which actually is inclusive all all the major branches of Judaism in the Baltimore region:

http://www.associated.org/local_includes/downloads/31002.pdf

I especially like the citing of the pertinent quote from Torah:

The Torah reminds us that “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him since you were strangers in the land of Egypt”
(Exodus 22:20).
posted by RRgal at 1:35 PM on August 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress (Minnesota) in the US isn't really a religious leader, but here's his policy on immigration. He is a strong supporter of the Dream Act, among other generally humane treatments of immigrants.

CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations - the largest Muslim advocacy organization in the US) put out a News Brief in June, in support of the Dream Act.

Here's an interesting essay on the Quranic perspective of immigration in its historical and modern contexts. I don't have time to fact check it all, but seems consistent with with what I know of Islam having a generally pro-immigration perspective based not on artificial borders and boundaries, but on safe refuge and justice.
posted by raztaj at 1:57 PM on August 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't know as much about the specifically religious aspects of it, but a few Jewish sources from which you can probably find more on that:

HIAS Advocacy

AJC on immigration

ADL on immigration

Search results for "immigration" on JCPA

If you google and manage to weed through all the results for Jewish immigration to the US, Israeli immigration, and right-wing crazies complaining about how the Jews want illegal immigrants to take American jobs, you'll get lots of stuff like:

A paper on Jewish Involvement in Shaping American Immigration Policy, 1881-1965: A Historical Review

Local Jewish groups (this one happens to be in MN) on immigrant rights, etc.
posted by DestinationUnknown at 2:01 PM on August 18, 2012