1/29/2018  – “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him(her), for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” – Exodus 22:21

MARCHA, Methodists Associated Representing the Cause of Hispanic Americans, is deeply concerned with the inability of Congress to provide the just and necessary protection to the 800,000 youth who participated in the DACA Program. Young persons that were brought into the US by their parents at a very early age, through no choice of their own, who have lived most of their lives in the US and consider our country their nation. Young people who have grown up to be responsible members of society, many of them members of United Methodist congregations and transformational leaders in our denomination and the community.

MARCHA denounces the political game that plays with the lives of these young people, creating great anxiety and fear of deportation to a country that they do not know or claim as their own. The action of ending the DACA program without providing for a way to protect the 800,000 participants was mean and cruel. Such action made these law-abiding youth clear targets of ICE and the aggressive immigration raids now taking place across the nation.

We believe that when a country and its leaders are not willing to protect its children and youth, the most vulnerable persons of society, it represents a sign of moral decay that could lead to the moral bankruptcy of the nation.

MARCHA calls on all United Methodist and people of good will to contact their Representatives and Senators and demand they do what is right, ethical and moral and pass a DREAM Act that protects the lives of all DACA-eligible young people in the United States.

Click here for a DACA Action Toolkit and other resources on immigration.

Contact Person: Bishop Elias Galvan, Executive Director (galvan222@msn.com)