NEW YORK – Latino evangelical leaders, who wield tremendous clout in immigrant communities, are sharply divided on the 2010 Census.
The rift developed earlier this month after one influential group of pastors said it would call for a census boycott among undocumented immigrants as a bargaining chip in their demands for comprehensive immigration reform.
“The boycott idea’s spreading like fire,” said Rev. Miguel Ángel Rivera, president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, or CONLAMIC for its Spanish acronym. “It’s the only thing that will make politicians sit up and listen.”
News of the boycott has certainly reached CONLAMIC Vice-chair Rev. Kittim Silva, who heads the Iglesia Pentecostal de Jesucristo in Queens, the New York City borough renowned for its ethnic diversity. Though he acknowledges initial misgivings about the boycott, which he knew would be controversial, he says he’ll back it.
“As a pastor I communicate the position CONLAMIC’s taken on the issues. I have to wear that hat,” said Rev. Silva, sitting in his office desk at the brick-walled church he’s led since 1983.
Other pastors not affiliated with CONLAMIC disagree with the boycott. “It’s unfair to collapse the census into immigration reform,” said Rev. Gabriel Salguero, senior pastor of the Lamb’s Church in Manhattan and director of the Latino Leadership Program at Princeton Theological Seminary. “There’s a large number of Latino evangelicals who understand the positive impact” of the census.
Read the full article in the April 30, 2009 edition of NewsMediaAmerica.
And if people voluntarily choose to avoid a program that could wind up getting them more help – should they then not be denied any help if their names are not verifiably found in a census? (Yes, I know about the holdback and privacy concerns). But if you don’t want to play, don’t expect to get paid.