‘July 7, 2010

Some prominent conservatives are speaking out in favor of the kind of comprehensive immigration bill that many Republicans oppose — one that would include border security and then a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

As a leading evangelical conservative,

Richard Land’s credentials are impeccable. He heads the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, and from that influential perch he’s been urging his fellow conservatives to rethink their opposition to the immigration overhaul.

“I’ve had some of them appeal to me. They say, ‘Richard, you’re going to divide the conservative coalition.’ And I said, ‘Well, I may divide the old conservative coalition, but I’m not going to divide the new one.’ ”

Land adds, “If the new conservative coalition is going to be a governing coalition, it’s going to have to have a significant number of Hispanics in it, that’s dictated by demographics, and you don’t get large numbers of Hispanics to support you when you’re engaged in anti-Hispanic immigration rhetoric.”

Last week, when President Obama gave his speech on immigration, Land was in the audience. In fact, he had urged the president to make the speech. Obama called on both parties to rise above petty politics to fix the country’s broken immigration system.

Land says that will be very hard because, for both parties, there’s a short-term political advantage to doing nothing.’

For source and more click on:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128352487

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SEARCHING FOR RELIABLE SOURCES,
not hearsay, rumors, or falsehoods.