Immigration

Texas megachurch pastor Joel Osteen has spoken out on the Alabama state law that makes it a crime for pastors to provide church shelter for illegal immigrants, as residents protest against a new provision to the bill that may force courts to disclose information on undocumented aliens.

"I'm not up to speed on it all, but I think in general you know the Bible tells us to help one another and to help those in need so you know, I think it's a tough position to not be able to welcome people to our churches. You know we don't necessarily know who they are," said Pastor Osteen said in an interview earlier this week with WIAT-TV, while he was visiting Birmingham.

In 2011, Alabama Christian leaders stood up against state officials seeking to enact the "nation's most merciless" anti-immigration law which puts pastors in danger of facing criminal charges for transporting, concealing, harboring or shield an illegal immigrant. The Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act takes aim at people without proper alien registration living in the state. more >>

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill last week that seeks to end the practice of illegal immigrants getting child tax credit refunds. Attention was brought to the issue after an investigative report by a local television news station went viral on the Internet.

Illegal immigrants are fraudulently taking advantage of the federal income tax's child tax credit to the tune of $4.2 billion per year, reported Bob Segall of WTHR, an NBC affiliate in Indianapolis, Ind., on April 26. Since even those who do not pay takes can receive the credit, illegal immigrants have found that they are able to receive $1,000 per child from the federal government by filing taxes.

In some cases, though, the fraud goes even further. Segall found cases in which undocumented immigrants were taking the tax credit for nieces and nephews for whom they are not legal guardians and do not live in the United States. Some received more than $10,000 from the federal government. more >>

Correction Appended

A coalition of groups from the religious left held a prayer vigil and "Jericho march" at the Supreme Court this week. The court was hearing arguments in a case on the constitutionality of an Arizona immigration law.

The 48-hour prayer vigil began Monday and ended Wednesday morning, the day of the court hearings, with a "Jericho march" around the Supreme Court building. Over 1,000 people were reportedly participating in the march, which was named after the Battle of Jericho from the book of Joshua in which God brought victory to the Israelites after they marched around Jericho and the city walls fell down. more >>

The number of Mexican immigrants entering the United States over the five year period between 2005 and 2010 is equal to the number leaving the country and returning home, an analysis by Pew Hispanic Center reported.

The study shows that in the five year period about 1.4 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States and about 1.4 million Mexican immigrants and their U.S.-born children moved back to Mexico.

The figures stand in contrast with the period between 1995 and 2000, when nearly 3 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States, compared with only 700,000 who returned home from the U.S. more >>

Former Chicago resident and U.S. citizen, Ellie Lavi, is fighting to get her twin girls United States citizenship, going up against a law that states the girls must have a biological connection to at least one parent. The twins' biological connections are unclear as they were born by In-Vitro Fertilization, and now this surprisingly is causing issues with their citizenship being granted.

In 2009, Lavi, who was living in Israel, underwent IVF treatment in order to conceive her children. She gave birth to twin girls, Maya and Sheila, and went to the U.S. consulate in Tel Aviv to get them official U.S. citizenship.

Her claim was denied on the basis that the girls have no biological connection to Lavi, who is unable to provide documentation of her girls' biological father's citizenship. "I have been embarrassed, humiliated, ashamed," Lavi told NBC News. more >>

A new study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has revealed that Christians make up almost half of all the world's immigrants, while Jewish people are by far the biggest migrants in terms of proportion.

The study, titled "Faith on the Move" and released last week, stands in contrast to Western fears that Muslims are coming in by waves and taking over Christian countries, Reuters suggested.

Of the world's 214 million people who have moved from their home country to live in another, about 106 million (49 percent) are Christians while around 60 million (27 percent) are Muslims. Jews made up for 3.6 million of those who have moved across international borders, but that accounts for close to 25 percent of all Jewish people, the biggest proportion by far. more >>