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Evangelical Leaders Divided on Obama's New Immigration Policy

  • Religion Today Religious persecution, missions, Christianity around the world
  • Updated Feb 07, 2013

Just a few days before President Obama issued an executive order allowing up to 800,000 illegal immigrants under age 30 to apply for work authorization -- a decision some are calling "back-door amnesty" -- the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) released a statement signed by more than 100 faith leaders calling for legislatively enacted immigration reforms that help keep families together. However, the president's plan divided the group, WORLD News Service reports. NAE president Leith Anderson seemed to support Obama's announcement, calling it "the right thing to do," but Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery criticized it, not because it is "back-door amnesty," but because it allows young immigrants to stay in the country while their parents are deported. Meanwhile, Reps. David Shweikert and Ben Quayle, both Arizona Republicans, filed separate bills to prevent what Quayle dubbed the "Back-Door Amnesty Act of 2012." Quayle said: "This end-run around Congress was a direct rebuke to the principle of three co-equal branches of government ... and more broadly, our entire system of laws. It's time for Congress to send a loud and clear message to the Obama administration that its efforts to circumvent the legislative branch and ignore our nation's laws will not stand."