The call for a moratorium on ICE raids is gaining momentum! This past Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined hundreds of families Saturday evening at a church in San Francisco’s Mission District demanding an end to the immigration raids and deportations that separate parents from children across the United States. (See Pelosi Calls for an End to Inhumane Raids.)

I’m proud to say that the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations was the first religious denomination to call for an end to the raids and deportations that are tearing families apart causing fear and repression in immigrant communities and sorrow and disruption in all communities where school friends are losing parents, businesses are losing workers, and anti-immigrant sentiment is bolstered.

The UUA joined the New Sanctuary Movement in 2007 and passed an Action of Immediate Witness that year to end the raids. Since then the Catholic Conference of Bishops has called for a moratorium on the raids as well. Two coalitions that the UUA works with, Interfaith Worker Justice and Welcoming Massaschusetts, have also called for an end to the raids and unjust deportations.

Congregations wishing to take this stand can sign the New Sanctuary Movement Pledge.

(Please let me know that you did by writing to sleslie@uua.org — so far 12 congregations have done so). MA congregations can also do so at the Welcoming MA site. Soon, there will be a Welcoming America site that will include CO, GA, ID, MA, NB, NC, NY and TN and other states. The launching conference is in April.

For the first time in a long time, it’s looking like a humane and just policy toward immigrants has a likelihood of passing. See our website for more information about the UUA’s advocacy efforts for just immigration reform.

Note: In May, the Action of the Month will be on Immigration and this year’s Public Witness at General Assembly in Salt Lake City will be immigrant rights.