Has taken no position on immigration, but there is a general consensus about securing the borders first, then addressing illegal immigrants already here
Richard Lang, from the Southern Baptist Convention, has been in the news lately taking all the arrows for speaking up when so many evangelicals are quiet.
Richard Lang writes in Baptist Press News:
Some will ask, "Why not just insist that all of the more than 12 million illegal immigrants go home?" The simple answer is that there is neither the political nor economic will in the U.S. population for forcibly rounding up 12 million people -- many of them who have children who are America citizens -- and shipping them back to their country of origin. Politics and public policy are the art of the possible. The reality is that the United States is not going to deport 12 million people, whether you think we should or not.Once the federal government has convinced the American people that it has the will and is committing the resources necessary to enforce its laws, then I believe a consensus can be built and will form around some type of guest-worker program that would address the question of the illegal immigrants who are already in the United States.
What would the contours of such a program look like? First, it must not involve any type of amnesty that would just forgive the illegal entry of people. It would recognize that these people did break the law in order to come here and work. Most of them have been hard-working, law-abiding residents since their arrival.
Such a guest-worker program would, in effect, say to those who are here illegally: You have a one-time opportunity of six months to come forward and apply for a guest-worker status, agree to undergo a criminal background check and agree to learn English.
Deporting all the illegals is not an option. But drying up the job market for illegals is. When no one will hire them out of fear of being busted by ICE, they'll retreat to their origins. (Too bad they didn't start busting employers of illegals twenty years ago...when the law went into effect.)