Lord Carey should Get Real on Immigration

By Vaughan Jones

Ekklesia – Lord Carey, who has joined forces with a group of lobbyists wanting to shoehorn their anti-immigration views into the forthcoming election campaign, is living in an unreal world.

Church offices and local clergy do indeed face daily frustration around immigration issues. But the problem is about restrictions on the life-chances of vulnerable people, not how to get people anxious about abstract population numbers or how to portray those of different background, culture and religion as a ‘threat’.

For members of churches, for international theological students and for visiting church officials – among many others – harsh immigration controls championed by the main political parties (David Cameron has just joined the bandwagon, it seems) are biting hard.

Read more – http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10981