Fred Thompson Immigration

WRAP-UP: SBC spotlights ethnicity, unity, unengaged

PHOENIX (BP)--Southern Baptist Convention messengers meeting in Phoenix June 14-15 adopted an historic report encouraging ethnic diversity, witnessed dozens of leaders standing together in support of a landmark unity pledge, and saw hundreds of pastors and laypeople volunteer to lead their churches to embrace one of the world's 3,800 unengaged people groups.

It was the lowest-attended annual meeting in 67 years, with just over 4,800 in attendance, but the substance of the meeting led plenty who attended to argue it shouldn't be judged on numbers.

"I do believe it could prove to be the most spiritually significant convention over the last 50 years," Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright, who was re-elected to another one-year term, told Baptist Press after the Phoenix gathering. Wright pointed to the sluggish economy and to the travel time from most SBC churches as possible reasons for the low attendance.

From beginning to end, messengers heard biblical pleas for Southern Baptists to join the church planting movement in North America and to adopt an unengaged people group around the world. And messengers responded. More than 1,000 pastors and their wives packed a North American Mission Board luncheon to learn about the entity's new Send North America church planting strategy. On the final night of the convention, hundreds of messengers flooded the front of the convention hall at the end of the International Mission Board report, having signed cards pledging to lead their church to embrace an unengaged people group. An IMB representative will contact them later.

Each mission board report also featured a commissioning service, with Southern Baptists meeting their newest missionaries.

"Coming back to the authority of Scripture was a correcting point that had to take place [in the SBC], but the mission is to fulfill the Great Commission," Wright said. "I think this was the most unified convention around the Great Commission that I have experienced. People came here with anticipation of that unity."

Wright practiced that unity during his press conference, inviting the presidents of NAMB, Kevin Ezell, IMB, Tom Elliff, and the Executive Committee, Frank Page, to sit on the platform with him and participate. It was the first convention as president for all four men, and each one had a unique emphasis during his respective report to messengers.

How do you like Thompson's immigration proposal ? | Best Price Seating

NAPLES — Republican Fred Thompson said Tuesday the government should yank federal dollars from cities and states that don’t report illegal immigrants.

In his first major policy proposal, Thompson challenged presidential rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney by criticizing ”sanctuary cities” where city workers are barred from reporting suspected illegal immigrants who enroll their children in school or seek hospital treatment.

”Taxpayer money should not be provided to illegal immigrants,” Thompson said at a round-table discussion that included Collier County, Fla., sheriff Don Hunter.

Thompson has argued his rivals are soft on illegal immigration because Giuliani, as New York mayor, sued the federal government to keep his city’s sanctuary policy and because Romney tolerated sanctuary cities as Massachusetts’ governor.

In turn, Giuliani’s campaign accused Thompson of being weak on the issue. At a news conference Tuesday in Boston, Giuliani said: “I’m the one who can bring about immigration reform.”

The immigration issue is important to many conservatives who influence Republican primaries. Some argue that illegal immigrants are straining schools and hospitals and taking jobs from U.S. citizens.

Thompson chose to announce his plan in Collier County, which has vast tomato farms that hire thousands of immigrants and last year was part of a two-county sweep that saw 163 illegal immigrants arrested in one weekend.

Thompson’s campaign said 22 percent of the county’s crime is committed by illegal immigrants.

Under Thompson’s plan, sanctuary cities would lose discretionary federal grants, as would colleges and universities that allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition.

The former Tennessee senator also called for stronger laws forcing employers to verify that workers aren’t illegal immigrants, for a more rigorous system to track who is coming in and out of the country and for increased prosecution of ”coyotes,” smugglers who bring illegal immigrants across the Mexican border.

Calling for stronger border security, he said: “A small amount of nuclear material could do a lot of damage in the wrong hands. It makes you wonder why a terrorist would bother going through an airport or a port … when we have an open border.”

http://www.miamiherald.com/campaign08/story/281362.

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