Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform to oppose Lou Barletta (Jim Wallis backgrounder)

On Monday, the illegal immigration supporting Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (headed up by Jim Wallis) held a press conference where they stated their opposition to Hazleton, Pennsylvania mayor Lou Barletta.

It was probably what you'd suspect, and their press release had more of the same:

..."They need to stop using rhetoric that demonizes immigrants and make an effort to respect all people, including immigrants..."

Barletta responded to the paper by pointing out that they'd forgot to specify that his opposition is to illegal immigration and that he supports the legal variety.

The article also has a little dirt on Wallis; while I hate to admit it I'd previously considered him mainstream leftwing because of the way that he's been presented by the MSM, but apparently he's got an interesting past:

Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform is a spinoff of "Sojourners" magazine. It's a coalition of about 100 religious groups - including the Mennonite Church U.S.A. and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference - that favor a path to citizenship for people in the country illegally.
...Wallis was an anti-Vietnam War activist in the mid- to late 1960s. He's been arrested numerous times for "civil disobedience."
"Sojourners" began as "Post-American," an anti-capitalist magazine that criticized American foreign policy and supported socialist governments. In the early '70s, Wallis moved the magazine from Chicago to Washington and changed its name to "Sojourners."
In 1979, Wallis told the magazine "Mission Tracks," "more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes." That year, he also criticized the Vietnamese boat people who were trying to escape that country's communist government, saying they'd been "inoculated" ... "to support their consumer habit in other lands."...

Immigration2008a · Thu, 04/17/2008 - 20:36 · · Importance: 9