LDS Church calls on Congress to Make Room for Dreamers

[bluebell]

This is from the newsroom:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is established in 188 nations around the globe. Issues of immigration and legal status are of concern for many of our members. Most of our early Church members emigrated from foreign lands to live, work and worship, blessed by the freedoms and opportunities offered in this great nation.

Immigration is a complex and sometimes divisive issue. As we have stated before, we believe that our first priority is to love and care for one another as Jesus Christ taught. Each nation must determine and administer its policies related to immigration. The Church does not advocate any specific legislative or executive solution. Our hope is that, in whatever solution emerges, there is provision for strengthening families and keeping them together. We also acknowledge that every nation has the right to enforce its laws and secure its borders and that all persons subject to a nation's laws are accountable for their acts in relation to them.

We welcome the sincere efforts of lawmakers and leaders to seek for solutions that honor these principles and extend compassion to those seeking a better life. Specifically, we call upon our national leaders to create policies that provide hope and opportunities for those, sometimes referred to as “Dreamers,” who grew up here from a young age and for whom this country is their home. They have built lives, pursued educational opportunities and been employed for years based on the policies that were in place. These individuals have demonstrated a capacity to serve and contribute positively in our society, and we believe they should be granted the opportunity to continue to do so.

This SLC Tribune article also mentions that this statement has caught some people by surprise, believing that the new presidency would be more conservative.  

Some observers had suspected the new Mormon leadership — Nelson and his counselors Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring — would take a more conservative stance. 

Is this stance going to be difficult for some members to accept?  I get a lot of anti-DACA stuff on Facebook from members.

[Gray]

11 minutes ago, bluebell said:

This is from the newsroom:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is established in 188 nations around the globe. Issues of immigration and legal status are of concern for many of our members. Most of our early Church members emigrated from foreign lands to live, work and worship, blessed by the freedoms and opportunities offered in this great nation.

Immigration is a complex and sometimes divisive issue. As we have stated before, we believe that our first priority is to love and care for one another as Jesus Christ taught. Each nation must determine and administer its policies related to immigration. The Church does not advocate any specific legislative or executive solution. Our hope is that, in whatever solution emerges, there is provision for strengthening families and keeping them together. We also acknowledge that every nation has the right to enforce its laws and secure its borders and that all persons subject to a nation's laws are accountable for their acts in relation to them.

We welcome the sincere efforts of lawmakers and leaders to seek for solutions that honor these principles and extend compassion to those seeking a better life. Specifically, we call upon our national leaders to create policies that provide hope and opportunities for those, sometimes referred to as “Dreamers,” who grew up here from a young age and for whom this country is their home. They have built lives, pursued educational opportunities and been employed for years based on the policies that were in place. These individuals have demonstrated a capacity to serve and contribute positively in our society, and we believe they should be granted the opportunity to continue to do so.

This SLC Tribune article also mentions that this statement has caught some people by surprise, believing that the new presidency would be more conservative.  

Some observers had suspected the new Mormon leadership — Nelson and his counselors Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring — would take a more conservative stance. 

Is this stance going to be difficult for some members to accept?  I get a lot of anti-DACA stuff on Facebook from members.

Immigration is one of the very few issues the church is fairly liberal on, so yes, this will be difficult to accept for a lot of members.

[ksfisher]

Just now, Gray said:

this will be difficult to accept for a lot of members.

I think you're giving the membership of the church less credit than they deserve here.

[Glenn101]

   I for one am for letting them stay, but there still needs to be a vetting process for the criminal element. In fact that is my main concern as to the immigrant issue altogether.

 

[Gray]

43 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

I think you're giving the membership of the church less credit than they deserve here.

I've read a lot of comments from conservative members expressing dismay at the church's policies towards illegal immigrants. American Mormons are extraordinarily Republican.

[ksfisher]

9 minutes ago, Gray said:

I've read a lot of comments from conservative members expressing dismay at the church's policies towards illegal immigrants. American Mormons are extraordinarily Republican.

Do the comments you're reading reflect the views of a majority, or only a small minority or church members? 

The internet seems to have the ability to amplify extreme views.

[Kevin Christensen]

Statistically, immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than home born citizens.   The xenophobic hysteria and propaganda pushed by Trump and Miller notwithstanding.  And the current immigration policies are in practice far more complex than the tweets suggest.  Trevor Noah did an excellent dissection of that a couple of nights ago.

What was it the Bible says about how we should treat strangers?  Something about forgetting that we have ever been strangers?  

Or the the Book of Mormon, as Nibley observes:

Quote

About two hundred years after Christ visited the people, they became tired of intellectual integrity and self-control and opted to give up the law of consecration. From then on everything went in a fatal declension, each step of which has been duly marked and described in the Book of Mormon.

First they became privatized. They no longer had “their goods and their substance . . . [in] common” (4 Nephi 1:25). Then they became ethnicized as they “taught [their children] to hate” the Nephites and Lamanites they had been playing with (4 Nephi 1:39). Then they became nationalized by serving the careers of ambitious men. Then they become militarized, from the need for large-scale security when mutual trust gave away to self-interest. And they were terrorized as shrewd men saw the advantages of organized crime. Then they became regionalized as people began to form various combinations for protection and profit, entering through business relations with the criminal society and even sharing in their profits. Then they became tribalized as they finally succeeded at the urging of various powerful interests in abolishing the central government completely. Then they became fragmentized into paramilitary groups, wandering bands, family shelters, and so forth. Then they become polarized; to check the general disorder and insecurity, great armies were formed around competent leaders by forced recruitment or conquest. And they became pulverized as the great armies smashed each other and left the land utterly desolate. It is left for a future generation to take the final step and become vaporized.

https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1112&index=24

Or, we could, try for an inclusive Zion.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

This is from the newsroom:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is established in 188 nations around the globe. Issues of immigration and legal status are of concern for many of our members. Most of our early Church members emigrated from foreign lands to live, work and worship, blessed by the freedoms and opportunities offered in this great nation.

Immigration is a complex and sometimes divisive issue. As we have stated before, we believe that our first priority is to love and care for one another as Jesus Christ taught. Each nation must determine and administer its policies related to immigration. The Church does not advocate any specific legislative or executive solution. Our hope is that, in whatever solution emerges, there is provision for strengthening families and keeping them together. We also acknowledge that every nation has the right to enforce its laws and secure its borders and that all persons subject to a nation's laws are accountable for their acts in relation to them.

We welcome the sincere efforts of lawmakers and leaders to seek for solutions that honor these principles and extend compassion to those seeking a better life. Specifically, we call upon our national leaders to create policies that provide hope and opportunities for those, sometimes referred to as “Dreamers,” who grew up here from a young age and for whom this country is their home. They have built lives, pursued educational opportunities and been employed for years based on the policies that were in place. These individuals have demonstrated a capacity to serve and contribute positively in our society, and we believe they should be granted the opportunity to continue to do so.

This SLC Tribune article also mentions that this statement has caught some people by surprise, believing that the new presidency would be more conservative.  

Some observers had suspected the new Mormon leadership — Nelson and his counselors Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring — would take a more conservative stance. 

Is this stance going to be difficult for some members to accept?  I get a lot of anti-DACA stuff on Facebook from members.

I don't find this all that surprising. The Church has for quite a while now staked out a stance sympathetic to immigrants for reasons articulated in the above statement. I think this is consistent with values pertaining to family and the spread of the gospel and that it thus transcends the liberal-conservative political dichotomy.

I would have been more surprised to see it forsaking that stance now, just because there has been a transition in the presidency.

[Scott Lloyd]

15 minutes ago, Gray said:

I've read a lot of comments from conservative members expressing dismay at the church's policies towards illegal immigrants. American Mormons are extraordinarily Republican.

But Republican or Democrat, American Mormons are, in the end, Mormon.

 

[Gray]

7 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Do the comments you're reading reflect the views of a majority, or only a small minority or church members? 

The internet seems to have the ability to amplify extreme views.

I don't know. We'd need some polling to find out.

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Statistically, immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than home born citizens.   The xenophobic hysteria and propaganda pushed by Trump and Miller notwithstanding.  And the current immigration policies are in practice far more complex than the tweets suggest.  Trevor Noah did an excellent dissection of that a couple of nights ago.

What was it the Bible says about how we should treat strangers?  Something about forgetting that we have ever been strangers?  

Or the the Book of Mormon, as Nibley observes:

https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1112&index=24

Or, we could, try for an inclusive Zion.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

The statement, though, does acknowledge the right of a nation to enforce its own laws and secure its own borders. While striving to be humane and inclusive, a nation has as its first priority to see to the well-being of its own citizenry.

Edited January 27, 2018 by Scott Lloyd

[Gray]

3 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

But Republican or Democrat, American Mormons are, in the end, Mormon.

 

But also, in the end, they're also Democrats or (much more likely) Republicans, usually based on deeply held convictions.

[Scott Lloyd]

22 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Do the comments you're reading reflect the views of a majority, or only a small minority or church members? 

The internet seems to have the ability to amplify extreme views.

Boy that's the truth! And those whom it amplifies the most are the ones who are already loud and strident.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Scott Lloyd

[Calm]

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

I think you're giving the membership of the church less credit than they deserve here.

Hopefully many of those who were disturbed by the previous proimmigration (in the sense of saying don't separate families, etc) will have had time  to adjust and hold a more relaxed view, but I suspect a number of those who were upset at the Church for their public position last time will still be upset this time around.

[carbon dioxide]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

Is this stance going to be difficult for some members to accept?  I get a lot of anti-DACA stuff on Facebook from members.

I am pretty hardcore on immigration.  However I have no problem with the dreamers having legal status.  I don't blame these people.  They simply followed their parents and the parents did what the government pretty much allowed them to do.  If a government is not going to control its borders and enforce immigration law vigorously, why would not people take advantage of it?  I blame our government and the political leaders of the last 30 years for this.  They caused this problem.  They failed to live up to the promises made in 1986.  So I am for letting these people get legal status in exchange for actual real long term immigration enforcement and border control including fences and walls.  What I can count on however is whatever the government does, they will be lying to us.  They will grant legal status and still hundreds of thousands of people will still flood into the country illegally because government can't keep its promises.  The one thing one can count on in life is the government making promises and not following through.

[smac97]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

This is from the newsroom:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is established in 188 nations around the globe. Issues of immigration and legal status are of concern for many of our members. Most of our early Church members emigrated from foreign lands to live, work and worship, blessed by the freedoms and opportunities offered in this great nation.

Immigration is a complex and sometimes divisive issue. As we have stated before, we believe that our first priority is to love and care for one another as Jesus Christ taught. Each nation must determine and administer its policies related to immigration. The Church does not advocate any specific legislative or executive solution. Our hope is that, in whatever solution emerges, there is provision for strengthening families and keeping them together. We also acknowledge that every nation has the right to enforce its laws and secure its borders and that all persons subject to a nation's laws are accountable for their acts in relation to them.

We welcome the sincere efforts of lawmakers and leaders to seek for solutions that honor these principles and extend compassion to those seeking a better life. Specifically, we call upon our national leaders to create policies that provide hope and opportunities for those, sometimes referred to as “Dreamers,” who grew up here from a young age and for whom this country is their home. They have built lives, pursued educational opportunities and been employed for years based on the policies that were in place. These individuals have demonstrated a capacity to serve and contribute positively in our society, and we believe they should be granted the opportunity to continue to do so.

This SLC Tribune article also mentions that this statement has caught some people by surprise, believing that the new presidency would be more conservative.  

Some observers had suspected the new Mormon leadership — Nelson and his counselors Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring — would take a more conservative stance. 

Is this stance going to be difficult for some members to accept?  I get a lot of anti-DACA stuff on Facebook from members.

A few thoughts:

1. I think we need to remind ourselves that the Church is not a political entity.  The Church's position on social/moral issues is based on doctrine and revelation, not on politial ideologies.  So some of the Church's stances align with "{American sociopolitically} conservative stance{s}," and some align with "{American sociopolitically} liberal or progressive" stances.

2. This was not a surprise to me, given the Church's previous moderate stance on immigration issues in the U.S.

3. I think it's weird that the Trib, of all news outlets (except, of course, for the Deseret News), would immediately leap to framing the Brethren's treatment of this issie in political terms ("some observers had suspected the new Mormon leadership ... would take a more conservative stance").

4. I am aware of a young man, enrolled in DACA, who is reconsidering his decision to serve his mission because DACA has expired.  

Love ya!

-Spencer

[rongo]

42 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Do the comments you're reading reflect the views of a majority, or only a small minority or church members? 

The internet seems to have the ability to amplify extreme views.

This is very much an issue outside of online forum participants. I've been asked to do "anything goes" Q&As in other stakes before, and there are often questions about the Church's stance on illegal immigration. The people asking the question are not happy with the answers to that question (and the answers are not black-and-white, catechism-style). In the end, a difficult issue for people is how the Church can regard people who willfully and knowingly violated U.S. law to be in full fellowship in the Church (i.e., why the Church doesn't regard this as a disciplinable offense). They are even more angry when they learn that there are even bishops and other priesthood leaders who are not legally in the country --- and that I am not necessarily talking about Mexicans, either. 

The problem with the Church's Newsroom statement is that it sounds nice, but doesn't say anything or give any real guidance, so people are left to their personal default settings. The Church's position is:

a) it is completely neutral on government solutions

b) families should be kept together (i.e., not broken up by deportation or extradition)

c) countries have the right to enforce their laws, and all people should obey those laws.

This produces a contradiction/paradox, or at least it is a non-answer in practice. A stance that does not lean one way over another doesn't clarify, and pleases no one. 

Edited January 26, 2018 by rongo

[Scott Lloyd]

9 minutes ago, Gray said:

But also, in the end, they're also Democrats or (much more likely) Republicans, usually based on deeply held convictions.

Convictions that stem from their religious faith. At least that has been my observation.

[Gray]

20 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Convictions that stem from their religious faith. At least that has been my observation.

For some things yes, other things no.

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

I've read a lot of comments from conservative members expressing dismay at the church's policies towards illegal immigrants. American Mormons are extraordinarily Republican.

I'll admit that not very many years ago in my orthodox days, I was one of these political conservatives in Utah that believed the church was too soft on "illegal immigration".  My views have changed significantly since then.  At the time I remember being quite upset and perplexed by the church's position on this issue, because I was such a strong believer in both orthodox Mormonism and in conservative Republicanism.  I was even fairly active in local politics, and as a delegate for my precinct in Utah I remember going to the convention and voting down some measures that were aimed at softening the party position on immigration.  

I'm repenting of these actions today, and trying to make amends for my uninformed positions of the past.  This is one area that I definitely have some regrets about.  Thanks to my faith journey I have re-evaluated my political positions as well and gotten away from the echo chambers of conservative talk radio and other forms of self reinforcing ideologies.  Now I'm very hesitant to agree with the trends of the groups that I find myself agreeing with.  This is why its so hard for me many times, because I don't always agree with the positions of conservatives or liberals, I often find myself without a home ideologically, and I'm fearful of agreeing too much with any one group.  A lonely path it is sometimes. 

[ksfisher]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

Hopefully many of those who were disturbed by the previous proimmigration (in the sense of saying don't separate families, etc) will have had time  to adjust and hold a more relaxed view, but I suspect a number of those who were upset at the Church for their public position last time will still be upset this time around.

My personal feeling is that keeping families together is more important than the observation of imaginary lines we’ve drawn on the earth.

Edited January 27, 2018 by ksfisher
sp

[Bobbieaware]

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Statistically, immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than home born citizens.   The xenophobic hysteria and propaganda pushed by Trump and Miller notwithstanding.  And the current immigration policies are in practice far more complex than the tweets suggest.  Trevor Noah did an excellent dissection of that a couple of nights ago.

What was it the Bible says about how we should treat strangers?  Something about forgetting that we have ever been strangers?  

Or the the Book of Mormon, as Nibley observes:

https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1112&index=24

Or, we could, try for an inclusive Zion.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Here’s an article based on very recently released United States Sentencing Commission statistics that updates the information you cite regarding crime and illegal immigrants. If the information in the article is true, we have been lied to for years.

 

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/crime/329589-the-truth-about-crime-illegal-immigrants-and-sanctuary-cities

[hope_for_things]

54 minutes ago, smac97 said:

A few thoughts:

1. I think we need to remind ourselves that the Church is not a political entity.  The Church's position on social/moral issues is based on doctrine and revelation, not on politial ideologies.  So some of the Church's stances align with "{American sociopolitically} conservative stance{s}," and some align with "{American sociopolitically} liberal or progressive" stances.

2. This was not a surprise to me, given the Church's previous moderate stance on immigration issues in the U.S.

3. I think it's weird that the Trib, of all news outlets (except, of course, for the Deseret News), would immediately leap to framing the Brethren's treatment of this issie in political terms ("some observers had suspected the new Mormon leadership ... would take a more conservative stance").

4. I am aware of a young man, enrolled in DACA, who is reconsidering his decision to serve his mission because DACA has expired.  

Love ya!

-Spencer

I see this a little differently from my perspective.  I see the church as an actor within a community, and that does not exempt them from being a political actor, although they will often publicly couch things in different terms.  The church has weighed in on public debates whenever it suits their interests.  In Utah, they've gotten involved in medical marijuana policy, gambling policy, public property policy, taxation issues, you name it they've been involved.  Many of these topics really don't have a social/moral component that is clear to me.  

I respect the church's right to get involved in politics and I don't have a problem with it whatsoever.  They are a stakeholder just like other stakeholders in the state, and a powerful one at that.  I think sometimes the church is criticized for how much power they wield over local legislative politics, and I think some of those criticisms are valid.  

If you think the actions of the church aren't political, why is that an important distinction from your perspective? 

Also, can you give some examples of actions that the church hypothetically could make that would cross this line into the political realm that you think would be inappropriate?  This might help me understand why you're making this claim that the church never gets involved in politics, because perhaps certain actions the church could take would cross a line of propriety from your perspective, and I'd like to better understand what that line is, and why that's an important distinction to you.  

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

My personal feeling is that keeping families together is more important than the ovservation of imaginary lines we’ve drawn on the earth.

Same here.

[rongo]

11 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

In Utah, they've gotten involved in medical marijuana policy, . . .

Can you give more info on this? I would love to see what they said in Utah. To my knowledge, there is no official Church stance on this. Elder Clayton and Elder Schweizer told us in September that the Church is working on this, but that it doesn't currently have a position. 

The Church can't come out with an official position on this soon enough for me!  

Edited January 26, 2018 by rongo