A glimmer of HOPE!

From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Thurday 22oct09 1 p.m. EDT

Pews protest gets attention of leaders -- 75% of National Assn. of Evangelical churches nix amnesty

FRIENDS, LET'S DECLARE A LITTLE VICTORY I think all of us will want to thank the approximately one-third of our NumbersUSA members who are evangelicals. They have done a huge amount of faxing and phone calling the last two weeks to stop their denominations from helping Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) build a new coalition to pass an amnesty. The results are that they have helped crumble a major pillar of Schumer's plans to pass an amnesty this winter. After looking like they were backing the amnesty, most of the evangelical denominations are now refusing to sign an endorsement. Hooray!

Read this blog for the details of the overall fight and the victory thus far.

(We still have the problem that most Mainline Protestant, Catholic and Jewish national groups continue to endorse amnesty. If you are a member of any of those and want to challenge them -- or if you are an evangelical and want to make sure this current victory stays in the win column -- please be sure you have taken this short Religion Survey. That will allow you to see special faxing opportunities.)

OVERWHELMING EVANGELICAL ENDORSEMENT WAS KEY TO SCHUMER'S AMNESTY PLAN When the late Sen. Ted Kennedy had to give up his 45-year Senate leadership on immigration, Schumer took over. He immediately revealed that he was going to do three things differently than Kennedy in order to pass the amnesty that Kennedy had failed to pass the last 8 years. Read my blog for Schumer's first two changes.

But the third change was to enlist the elites of the evangelical Christian movement to be an entirely new face for amnesty. Earlier this month, it looked like Schumer had pulled off a miracle. He assembled a Senate hearing panel of big-name evangelicals, including the president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) to endorse his plan to legalize most illegal aliens and to greatly increase the number of foreign workers allowed in the future. The NAE, with 42 member denominations, is the most conspicuous evangelical presence on Capitol Hill.

The NAE president told Schumer that the NAE's endorsement of legalization and increased foreign worker importation was "without dissent." We put that out to all NumbersUSA activists who are members of those 42 denominations and let them notify their national leaders how they felt about their decision to manipulate theology to make a case to favor illegal aliens over unemployed Americans. Denominations immediately began to post disclaimers on their websites and distance themselves from the NAE. Some of them provided some pretty strong biblical and theological reasons AGAINST amnesty. So far, only 11 of the 42 member denominations have been willing to sign onto the NAE pro-amnesty document. What a victory. Nobody can even contemplate attempting to claim evangelical support for amnesty in the future. Click here to see the list of 11 evangelical denominations that are lobbying for amnesty and more foreign workers (and also the list of the 31 evangelical denominations which resisted being pulled onto the amnesty bandwagon). We are continually posting new actions on your NumbersUSA Action Board. Please check to see if you have done all you can do this week. THANKS,