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Arizona Faith Leaders Call For Political Action To Protect DREAMers

Arizona faith leaders respond to DACA
(Photo by Mariana Dale - KJZZ)
Faith, community and local political leaders gather to voice their support for young undocumented immigrants who have DACA.

Valley faith leaders are rallying their congregations to support young undocumented immigrants who will lose their legal status in the country after Tuesday’s announced repeal of Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

“It is biblically obvious that we are to protect dreamers,” said Kit Danley, president of Phoenix’s Neighborhood Ministries. “We are to speak up for their plight. We are to call out the untruths spoken about them and we are letting all power brokers know that God and God’s people stand with them.”

She joined leaders of multiple faiths in a press conference at the Arizona Capitol on Wednesday afternoon.

“The Jewish community understands very well from our experience as Israelites in Egypt what it meant to be a stranger in a foreign land,” Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz said. “Though that narrative comes over and over the obligation not only for compassion, but for justice.”

RELATED: Activists, 'DREAMers' March To ICE In Phoenix After DACA Decision

Leaders urged people to unite, pray and act.

“Political action is the moral, righteous and faithful response to what dreamers are facing today,” said Bill Lyons, United Church of Christ Southwest conference minister.

He called on people to write and call their senators and representatives and ask for a legislative solution for those protected by DACA.

Mariana Dale was an assistant digital editor and senior field corrsepondent at KJZZ from 2016 to 2019.