‘Nuns on the Bus’ Kick Off Immigration Tour

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huffpostBy David Gibson, Religion News Service

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (RNS) With the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop, the “Nuns on the Bus” on Wednesday (May 29) kicked off a national tour for immigration reform aimed at giving a faith-based push to legislation that’s now hanging in the balance in Congress.

“We have got to make this an urgent message of now,” Sister Simone Campbell, head of the social justice lobby Network, which organized the tour, told a rally on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.

“The next six to eight weeks is going to determine what we can accomplish,” Campbell said as she pointed to nearby Ellis Island, the American gateway for generations of immigrants. “The time is now for immigration reform.”

Champions of immigration reform believe they have their best opportunity to pass a comprehensive overhaul since 2007, when an effort backed by President George W. Bush was thwarted by members of his own party. After Republicans lost the Latino vote in last fall’s elections, GOP leaders said they would be open to an immigration bill that they think could help change that political dynamic.

A bill with bipartisan support is continuing to make its way through the Senate as backers look to win passage this summer before Congress shifts its focus to budget battles and then the 2014 election season next year. But opponents are going all out to block the bill, and believe they have a good shot to prevail in the House, where conservative Republicans have more influence.

With so much at stake and so little time, Campbell and Network revved up the “Nuns on the Bus” in hopes of replicating the media coverage and public appeal of their first tour last summer, when the sisters traveled 2,700 miles through nine states in a wrapped bus to protest Republican budget plans.

That trip made “Nuns on the Bus” a sensation. Campbell appeared on news shows and “The Colbert Report,” and she was a prime-time speaker at the Democratic National Convention.

This time the bus will travel a total of 6,500 miles over three weeks, stopping in 15 states. Most of them – like Florida, Texas and California – have large Latino populations and are on the front line of the debate about creating a path to citizenship for as many as 11 million…

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This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.

David Gibson is an award-winning journalist, author, filmmaker, and a Catholic convert who specializes in writing about religion.

[Photo by tvnewsbadge]

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