The Rev. Cindy Kohlmann, co-moderator of the 223rd General Assembly, was eager to visit the U.S./Mexico border before her presentation at the joint meeting of the presbyteries of Grand Canyon and de Cristo.
What could your congregation do if it didn’t have to worry about keeping up a building? That’s the question Rev. Eneyas Freitas asked when he started a new worshiping community called Urban Connect in Phoenix. His congregation meets at a new event venue called The Vintage 45 in Phoenix’s warehouse district every Sunday morning.
I have read this part of Jesus’ birth story many times. However, as I hear more stories about how migrants are fleeing danger and extreme poverty in their homelands, I am challenged to read this story differently. How would I react if my child were in such danger? What would I do if I knew the only option to save my child was to flee? And what would that have been like for Mary and Joseph? What emotions and hardships would they have faced?
A group of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) staff and friends stood Tuesday as part of a national solidarity campaign to support Rosa Robles Loreto, the wife and mother who has spent eight months in sanctuary at Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona.
“Rosa is in a very difficult situation right now. She’s been living at that church for eight months because she has a final order of deportation,” said Teresa Waggener, coordinator for Immigration Issues and an Assistant Stated Clerk for the PC(USA). “We all know her to be our sister and our neighbor and we love her, and we are not going to stand still.”
The complexity of the American immigration debate couldn’t be more apparent than it is from Pan American Avenue in the border town of Douglas and from Internacional, the street directly across in Agua Prieta, Mexico.
A steady stream of cars, trucks, vans, and other vehicles line up to enter the United States Customs and Border Protection port of entry headed south into Mexico and north into the U.S. The people are diverse and they wait patiently to cross, generally for business or pleasure; commerce or recreation.
Walk with undocumented persons surviving along the United States-Mexico border in this video documentary produced by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of the General Assembly. Journeying in Hope, which includes a companion print series, spotlights the immigration issue and amplifies efforts by the PC(USA) and its faith partners to provide sanctuary and support.
There is activity everywhere – small-groups meeting around the campus, meals being prepared in the kitchen, day laborers waiting to be picked up for work, and even someone living on the grounds. Most of what happens at Southside centers on the congregation’s deep-rooted commitment to love of neighbor and care for the stranger.
Dubbed the birthplace of the sanctuary movement and situated 60 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, Southside is the epicenter of the Christian Church’s response to the United States immigration struggle. And Southside is, some assert, one of the best models for what the Church needs to do as the nation wrestles with immigration reform.
Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons shares his views on immigration and the church's response to it from the United States-Mexico border:
Hello my name is Gradye Parsons. I’m the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, and here I am in Sasabe, Arizona with other colleagues as we are looking at the wall that separates the United States and Mexico and reflecting upon immigration, a concern that’s deep in the hearts of many Presbyterians, and especially in these days as the president has signed a new order and as we are debating this issue as a country.
El Tribunal Supremo ha ratificado el aspecto más controversial de la legislación anti inmigrante adoptada en Arizona. La sección 2(B), la provisión que permite a la policía que detenga o arreste a personas para verificar su estado migratorio, fue la única sección cuestionada bajo la provisión de que la ley federal está por encima de la ley estatal que fue confirmada por el Tribunal.
The Supreme Court has upheld the most controversial aspect of the anti-immigrant legislation adopted in Arizona. Section 2(B), the provision that permits officers conducting a stop, detention, or arrest to verify the person’s immigration status, was the only section challenged under federal preemption theory upheld by the Court.