The United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) prognosticated potential arrest in a recent press release. A President’s Day protest, which will take place later on today near the White House, is supposed to highlight continued deportations of illegal immigrants by the United States government. Prominent United Methodists will join faith leaders, undocumented aliens, and labor leaders to try to focus President Obama’s attention on immigration issues. Most prominent in this UMC company will be GBCS staffer Bill Mefferd, United Methodist Women’s Carol Barton, Justice for our Neighbors manager Melissa Bowe, and Bishops Minerva Carcaño and Julius Trimble, who co-chair the denomination’s Interagency Immigration Task Force.
The leaders of this initiative urge executive fiat to address their grievances. The press release reports the President himself “through his executive authority can expand the deferred action for childhood arrivals program and suspend deportations.” Bishop Carcaño, no stranger to liberal political activism, announced, “We are willing to be arrested in front of the White House to tell the president that compassion on immigration starts with the stroke of his pen.”
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