LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: Like many church leaders in Alabama, Father Tom Ackerman of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham was caught off guard by the toughness of the state’s new immigration bill.

FATHER TOM ACKERMAN: I think there was some surprise about how extreme it was and how really sort of vicious it was, particularly some of the vicious rhetoric: “We want to affect every aspect of their lives. I’ll do everything short of shooting them.” These are senators and representatives saying these things.

SEVERSON: Here’s what Mayor Lindsey Lyons of Albertville, Alabama had to say about the bill’s critics.

MAYOR LINDSEY LYONS: When they say that we’re cruel or heartless or however they want to word it, you know, the fact of the matter is, we have rights. We have rights to protect our citizens, and what is wrong with coming up with solutions to protect our citizens, to protect our jobs. and to protect our quality of life?

SEVERSON: The solution the legislature came up with has caused quite a commotion. A federal judge temporarily blocked the enactment of House Bill 56 because of several lawsuits filed by four Alabama bishops of different denominations, the Justice Department, the ACLU, civil rights groups, joined by county sheriffs and 16 foreign governments. But some of the loudest protests came from church leaders like Pastor Angie Wright of the Beloved Community United Church of Christ.

PASTOR ANGIE WRIGHT: If I have ten undocumented persons in my church for an English-as-a-second-language class, or for worship, or vacation bible school. and I know that they’re undocumented, I can go to prison for 10 years and pay a $15,000 fine.

SEVERSON: In a nutshell, the bill, as it stands now, criminalizes working, renting, having false papers, shielding, harboring, hiring. and transporting undocumented immigrants. It also deprives them of most local public benefits. As it was intended, it punishes just about every aspect of illegal immigration.

FATHER ACKERMAN: The reason why we’ve filed this suit is because we want to keep the government out of our business. The government is trying to tell us what we can or can’t do in terms of works of mercy, works of charity, which are fundamental to our faith.

REPRESENTATIVE DAN WILLIAMS: Coming up on the left is where most of the Hispanics worked in town. This was the poultry processing plant.

SEVERSON: Representative Dan Williams was Mayor of Athens, Alabama for 18 years until he ran for the legislature 3 years ago. He supports House Bill 56.

REP. DAN WILLIAMS: The vast majority of people, when I was running for this office, the number one or two issue with them was illegal aliens. That’s it. Illegal aliens: “You need to do something about them. We want something done about them.”

SEVERSON: Williams was elected with the first Republican sweep of both houses in the legislature and the governorship in Alabama history. The new legislators quickly hammered out an immigration law, one that terrifies Janeth, an undocumented mother of two from Mexico who has been in the US for more than ten years. She’s a cashier in a store. Her husband works in construction.

JANETH ( with translator Helen Rivas): It’s terrorizing. Ever since they passed this law we don’t go out. We don’t go to restaurants, we don’t go to the park. We see a patrol car, and it terrifies us to think they may stop.

SEVERSON: She and her husband are buying their home at a very high mortgage rate. The new bill would allow the bank or anyone they have a contract with to cancel the contract, and they would have no recourse.

JANETH: I came here because my family didn’t even have any way to eat. To get this we’ve worked day and night, three jobs. If I have to leave here, one day to the next, if this law goes into effect I’m going to have to leave my house, my car. We’re going to arrive back home in our home countries in worse shape.

PASTOR ANGIE WRIGHT: Why make criminals out of people who have been our neighbors and our brothers and sisters and really are not causing any problems for any of us?

SEVERSON: An Alabama criminal justice survey found that violent crime in the state is down 10 percent over last year and below the national average. Property crime is also down. But Albertville Mayor Lyons says those statistics don’t hold up in his town.

MAYOR LINDSEY LYONS: When you have people coming from other countries that’s never driven a car before, and they start driving here with no insurance, no driver’s license, etc, causing multiple, many accidents.

SEVERSON: But, he says, that wasn’t the worst of it.

MAYOR LINDSEY LYONS: Because invariably you’re going to have the underlying current of crime and criminals come in with an influx of illegal immigrants, and that all is based on prostitution and brothels, your drug activity and your drug gangs, which have been present here in Albertville. That’s like it is in any community where you have the immigrant issue.

SEVERSON: He says hundreds of illegal immigrants moved in after Albertville-based poultry companies advertised in Mexico looking for cheap labor.

MAYOR LINDSEY LYONS: We had probably with our large two poultry plants here 2500 employment. They were vast all white and black American citizens, okay, and as the years went on and they were able to conduct business with the illegal alien population, well that just dwindled down, dwindled down, dwindled down.

SEVERSON: The Pew Hispanic Center estimates there are between 85,000 and 120,000 undocumented immigrants in Alabama, comprising a little less than 4 percent of the workforce. The state’s unemployment rate is above the national average at about 10 percent.

FATHER ACKERMAN: We have high unemployment not because the Hispanic immigrants are here. We have high unemployment because the housing market went bust, and we had a credit crisis. The immigrants have nothing to do with the high unemployment here. I think it’s primarily politicians preying on the fear of people. When economic times get tough, people often look for scapegoats.

REP. DAN WILLIAMS: You know, I go back “it’s the economy stupid,” that’s what it always is and people can say what they want to, but when you got a job and you’re making some money and your family is doing alright, you don’t have problems. But when my children lose their jobs, and I start having to help my children and my grandchildren, and maybe if I lose my job, I’m concerned about a guy who’s illegal coming here working. He’s doing okay and I’m not.

SEVERSON: The legislation authorizes police to demand papers from people they stop who they suspect are undocumented, something opponents say will lead to racial profiling. That’s already happening, according to Father Ackerman.

FATHER ACKERMAN: One of our priests actually has been stopped several times, pulled over. And then once they see that he has a collar on, “Oh, Father, go ahead.”

SEVERSON: Religious leaders are concerned that they will be breaking the law if they transport members they know are illegal to church.

FATHER ACKERMAN: If we’re transporting illegal immigrants, that’s a violation of this law, and those vehicles can be confiscated.

SEVERSON: Representative Williams says he thinks religious leaders’ opposition to the bill is overblown.

REP. DAN WILLIAMS: I don’t think you’re going to see policemen stopping the church buses to see if there’s somebody with brown skin riding to Sunday School.

FATHER ACKERMAN: If that wasn’t going to happen then they should have written that into the law. I’m talking about how the law is written, not how they expect it to be applied.

SEVERSON: Williams says he and his Republican colleagues have been called racists and that it’s unfair.

REP. DAN WILLIAMS: People still look at Alabama, and they see those grainy films from the 1960s and the police dogs and the water hoses in Birmingham. Well, Alabama is not like that anymore, but they’re trying to bring this back, that that’s what we are.

Speaker at rally: I myself overwhelmingly love this country.

SEVERSON: The young man speaking here, Victor, was brought here by his parents when he was a toddler. Victor is undocumented and part of a group of high school kids calling themselves Dreamers, who have been very vocal against the law because they’re the one’s who will likely suffer the most if they or their parents are deported. This is Jose. He’s undocumented. He says his dream was to become a teacher or a doctor.

JOSE: I came here at the age of 3. In all honesty, Mexico, it seems like a foreign world to me, and with all the problems it has now it’s frightening, the thought of having to go back there.

SEVERSON: Eduardo has his papers, unlike many of his friends.

EDUARDO: I’m mostly sad because I’ve got papers and then my friends, most of them are going to have to go back to their country or whatever, and I’m here lucky, being able to have the education and all the benefits they can’t.

REP. DAN WILLIAMS: You know, we’re all trying to get along. We’re all trying to raise our children, our grand children and everything. It’s just, you got that “illegal” word there that makes a difference.

SEVERSON: The judge who stayed the enactment of the law says she will issue her decision by September 29^th. Regardless of the outcome, it is likely to be appealed.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Birmingham, Alabama.

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: It was a huge surprise when the legislature of one of the most conservative states passed one of the more liberal immigration laws in the country. That legislation will most likely be preempted by federal law, but the bigger surprise was how it angered so many members of Utah’s predominate faith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons or LDS, even though it was the church that pushed through the legislation. This is Utah state senator Curt Bramble, a Republican and Mormon who helped craft the bill.

SENATOR CURT BRAMBLE: Personally I have not seen the LDS church lobby any issue harder than they’re activity on House Bill 116, the immigration legislation.

RON MORTENSEN: I jokingly said, you know, they may as well just pitched a tent in the back halls.

SEVERSON: Ron Mortensen is a career foreign service officer and a former Mormon missionary. He founded the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration and he’s not too happy with his church.

MORTENSEN: The church lobbyists had full access where normal people can’t go, in the back halls and through all the back alleyways and they were there full time this session.

SEVERSON: And the result was legislation that would allow undocumented immigrant families to continue living and working in the state, providing, among other things, they have no criminal record and pay a fine for being in the country illegally.

Originally the legislature was only going to pass an enforcement bill similar to the controversial one in Arizona until a compact of churches and the chamber of commerce asked for an additional bill with a more compassionate approach.

Critics like Representative Chris Herrod, a Republican and former missionary, say the bill was forced on the legislature.

REP. CHRIS HERROD: I’ve never in 5 years seen a bill pass in the fashion that that was passed.

SEVERSON: Because of the church?

REP. HERROD: Well, some could argue that but again that doesn’t make it right.

SEVERSON: Tim Chambless is a professor with the Hinkley Institute Of Political Science at the University of Utah.

PROFESSOR TIM CHAMBLESS: We do know that the Utah State Legislature is unique because about 91 percent of the 104 members of the Utah State Legislature self-identify as LDS.  And each member, almost each member would say they’re a good church member. They’re a member of the Republican party and their a good church member and they’re very divided on this issue.

SEVERSON: At first is was not widely known how hard the church had lobbied for the guest worker law. So why did it? The church says it was the Christian thing to do, that the bedrock moral issue is how we treat each other as children of God. Quin Monson is a political science professor at Brigham Young University.

PROFESSOR QUIN MONSON: There is an approach that the church has been supporting that allows people to square themselves with the law—it’s allowing people to live without fear, to stay with their families, to pay a fine and come out of the shadows.

SEVERSON: But in the view of the legislation’s opponents, it provides amnesty for law breakers, and goes squarely against one of the church’s 13 Articles of Faith, number 12.

MORTENSEN: It basically says we honor, obey and sustain the law of the land and that’s something that all the children learn when they’re growing up and especially the older generation. It was something that was drummed into you and that was just like one of the Ten Commandments, and so when people see people not complying with the law, that makes them nervous and raises questions.

SEVERSON: Ron Mortensen doesn’t argue with the compassion of his church, but he thinks the bigger reason for the legislation is that the church has grown far beyond U.S. borders.

MORTENSEN: In my opinion, the church has become a worldwide church and its interests now extend far beyond Utah, and it has to meet the expectations of its worldwide audience and a very large audience in Latin America.

SEVERSON: The church has over 14 million members worldwide, with more than half residing outside the United States.

MONSON: The population of Mormons in Mexico is hundreds of thousands if not over a million. There are at least a dozen temples of the church in Mexico and hundreds of chapels, so it’s a big population and it’s big all throughout Latin America.

CHAMBLESS: The church is concerned that anything that hurts its missionary effort is going to be something that maybe the church would not support.

MONSON: Utah is very cleanly connected with the church in a lot of people’s mind, outside of Utah and outside of the United States. And so if Utah is enacting some draconian restrictive immigration law, you can sort of imagine the reaction and then the blame that might be placed on the church for allowing it to happen. I can see that that might have been a motivating factor in getting involved and asking the legislature to dial it back.

MORTENSEN: There’s been pretty credible stories about withholding visas for missionaries in order to bring pressure on the church, so they’re playing in a very international arena. It’s no longer what’s necessarily good for Utah or even the United States, it’s what’s good for us worldwide.

SEVERSON: Mortensen says it might surprise some members to learn that the church sends undocumented members that live in the U.S. on stateside missions.

MORTENSEN: It’s long been the policy of the church to allow undocumented members to have temple recommends and to hold the priesthood, and it’s up to the bishops to decide if they’re worthy of that or not.

SEVERSON: Undocumented missionaries have been deported, and recently two minor church officials and their families were expelled from the country because they were here illegally. The church says it discourages members from entering any country without legal documentation.

For those who argue that a guest worker law violates federal law, others like Senator Curt Bramble, refer to a higher law, and uses the church’s harboring of runaway slaves as an example.

SENATOR BRAMBLE: During the 1860s, before the Civil War, members of the church that harbored slaves because slavery was immoral, was a violation of the law. We can talk throughout the history of mankind where laws that are on the books or laws that someone is demanding you follow result in an outcome that in and of itself is a violation of a higher law.

SEVERSON: Mortensen says the church’s view of the law may be changing because he thinks the church itself is changing.

MORTENSEN: The LDS church seems to be moving towards more of a social justice position and away from conservatism where it’s traditionally been.

SEVERSON: The pushback against the immigration law has been so public, delegates to the state Republican convention narrowly passed a resolution demanding that the law be repealed. Professor Quin Monson has done a study about how influential church endorsements can be with the membership, and he says as more members know how strongly the church feels about a guest worker provision, the tide may turn.

MONSON: When the church comes out and officially endorses a position and it’s united and the membership knows about it, then you see people shifting their position and this is even true when the issue pushes the membership in a direction that they might not otherwise want to go.

MORTENSEN: This is really a very, very divisive issue and I never have—on other issues—I never have heard people say, well, I’m going to stop paying fast offerings or I’m going to withhold some of my contributions or I’m really questioning my testimony, and I’m having people say that to me on this particular issue.

SEVERSON: Opponents say they’ll try to derail the guest worker law during the next legislative session although it seems unlikely they will succeed. For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Salt Lake City.

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: The reaction for and against the law has reverberated from Main Street through the halls of government to the sanctuaries of churches. This is Bishop Kirk Stevan Smith of the Arizona Episcopal diocese.

BISHOP KIRK S. SMITH (Episcopal Diocese of Arizona): Along with many other religious leaders I think it’s a terrible law. Legal things are important, political things are important, but people’s basic human rights are the most important thing, and that’s where the churches have an obligation, in my way of thinking, to stand up.

SEVERSON: But even among the clergy there is a divide. Religious leaders like the Reverend Tim Smith of Scottsdale, Arizona, support the law. Smith was a nondenominational pastor for 30 years, now a spiritual advisor.

REVEREND TIM SMITH: I think it’s a cry for help from the legislature, from the governor.

Bishop Kirk S. Smith

SEVERSON: Arizona has become ground zero for illegal immigration. It’s estimated that there are nearly 500,000 illegal residents living in Arizona and more streaming in every day. The federal government has dramatically increased the number of border agents, but not enough to stem the flow. Congress has yet to agree on a comprehensive solution. Reverend Smith says that the Arizona law only supports what was already on the books.

REV. TIM SMITH: Essentially, as I read the law and its amendments, it’s an attempt to enforce what has been a federal law since the days of, I think, FDR.

SEVERSON: Illegal immigration has long been a federal crime. The Arizona law makes it a state crime and instructs local police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop for an infraction and arrest anyone they reasonably suspect is undocumented or illegal. If citizens don’t think the police are being vigilant enough they can sue them in court. Supporters say there are enough safeguards to prevent profiling. Critics say the law makes it almost impossible not to profile.

Arizona police come down on both sides. Some say they don’t have the manpower to enforce the law. Another major issue is what is “reasonable suspicion”?

BISHOP KIRK SMITH: The wife of one of our priests who is of Mexican [descent], she was just driving through the neighborhood and was pulled over by a sheriff’s officer, asked to see her identification—which she had, she is an American citizen and has been an American citizen for 20 years—and the sheriff said to her, “If you didn’t have these paper you’d be taking a quick trip back to Mexico.”

SEVERSON: Supporters of Senate Bill 1070 say its purpose is to crack down on crime, like that experienced by rancher Robert Krentz. He was interviewed in 1999.

ROBERT KRENTZ: You know, we personally been broke into once, and they took about $700 worth of stuff, and you know if they come in and ask for water I’ll still give them water. That’s just my nature.

SEVERSON: In March, Krentz was murdered. His killing spurred passage of the new law because it was suspected that he was killed by an illegal. Now there is evidence that the killer was not an immigrant. Overall, the violent crime rate in Arizona is down, and so is property crime, and census data show that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than legal residents.

REV. RAUL TREVIZO: The legislature would say that this law is intended to stop home invasions, drugs coming across the border, guns being smuggled is absurd. In no way does this law even begin to address those issues.

SEVERSON: Father Raul Trevizo pastors a Catholic parish in Tucson, near the border, of about 4,000 families, many of them undocumented.

REV. TREVIZO: All this law does is put fear in people who are here as economic refugees trying to eke out a living and help themselves and their family back home.

SEVERSON: If it seems that many, if not most religious leaders are opposed to the law, Mark Tooley, a self-proclaimed conservative watchdog, says it’s because they have been the most vocal and, in his view, the most misleading.

Mark Tooley

MARK TOOLEY (President, Institute on Religion & Democracy): They are speaking very dogmatically to a political issue for which there is not direct guidance from the scriptures or Christian tradition, and it really is a political issue that Christians across the spectrum can disagree about.

SEVERSON: But religious opponents of the law say they are simply following the scriptures.

REV. TREVIZO: I believe the fundamental principle of the Old Testament is that we are under full obligation to follow God’s law. Jesus summarized God’s law in the great commandment: love your neighbor as yourself.

SEVERSON: United Methodist Bishop Minerva Carcano has been a vocal opponent of the law, lobbying anyone in Congress who will listen.

BISHOP MINERVA CARCANO (Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church): Scripture is full of references about the immigrant, and the message is consistent and clear. The message is we are to care for the immigrant. Leviticus says that we are to receive them and treat them as if they were native-born, as if they were citizens, and it also says that we are never to oppress them, and so that’s our job as religious leaders, to hold up our faith values.

BISHOP KIRK SMITH: And of course Jesus’ passage at the end of Matthew where he reminds us in the way that we treat the least among us, the way that we treat the hungry person or the thirsty person or the person in prison, is the way that we treat him.

SEVERSON: So you think that obeying the law would take precedence over taking care of the least amongst you?

REV. TIM SMITH: Well, obeying the law is foundational to our society and one of the reasons why the United States has been a haven for people across the years, that there has been a rule of law here and that through that rule of law we can sort out these problems that we have.

SEVERSON: Mark Tooley says scriptures that are often sited don’t really apply to illegal immigration and that religious opponents are not representing the views of their congregants.

TOOLEY: There is a perception that the religious world is for liberalized immigration because those on the more liberal side of the religious world are the most outspoken. So I don’t think that most of these church officials genuinely speak for the constituencies they claim to speak for.

BISHOP KIRK SMITH: I find that totally, totally wrong. I mean, these are our parishioners. I have a parishioner who’s undocumented, whose son who is seven years old said to her this week, “Mommy, what am I going to do when they take you away?” Those are my parishioners. I can’t see how somebody can say you’re out of touch with those people. Those are the people that I serve, and those are the people that I care about.

Bishop Minerva Carcano

SEVERSON: Bishop Carcano says many in her congregation oppose the law, but some are very upset with her position.

(speaking to Bishop Carcano): Have you had people leave or threaten to leave the church over this issue?

BISHOP CARCANO: We have, we have. They’ve left. Some of them are people who leave for a season and then return. Others—we will have lost them, and we pray for them.

SEVERSON: Many in the religious opposition say they can’t back away from their moral obligation even if it means harboring an illegal immigrant, even if it means breaking the law.

BISHOP CARCANO: We know that there are moments in history when we are under laws that are not just, that are not moral, that are not right. We’re called to challenge those. Slavery—it used to be a law to have slaves and to treat them in a certain way. If religious leaders had sat back and said that’s alright, we would have been stuck. We would have been at a very different place over the years and today. There are moments when we must challenge the laws of society.

SEVERSON: The state has taken a huge hit economically since the bill passed. Phoenix officials estimate the city has lost at least $100 million just in convention cancellations, and more keep coming in. Bishop Smith thinks the law will eventually be defeated, but not because of moral or ethical concerns.

BISHOP KIRK SMITH: But I suspect that it will ultimately be defeated because people say, you know, this just doesn’t make sense economically. Everybody is going to lose. This is a lose-lose for everybody. Our pocketbooks are going to lose, and our souls are going to lose.

SEVERSON: Unless court challenges prevent it, the Arizona law is scheduled to take effect after July 28.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly I’m Lucky Severson in Phoenix, Arizona.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: In Arizona, a tough new immigration law is prompting widespread protest from many in the religious community. It requires police in the state to check the status of anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally. To protest it many in the faith community have designated this weekend as a special time for prayer for immigrants. Among those condemning the law are the US Catholic bishops, who have long lobbied for comprehensive immigration reform.

Bishop Gerald Kicanas

We want to talk now with one bishop on the frontline of the battle. He is Gerald Kicanas, bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Tucson Arizona. Bishop, welcome. Several lawsuits were filed this week, more are promised, more are in the works, some of them from clergy. Where does the Church stand on this? Are you going to try to stop this bill, this law?

BISHOP GERALD KICANAS (Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson, Arizona): Even the Arizona legislators, Bob, are considering modifications to the bill, which suggests that they themselves are concerned about how it could be misinterpreted. So there will be legal action, certainly, and we’ll monitor that and participate where we feel it would be appropriate.

ABERNETHY: Do you think the church might become a party to the lawsuits to try to stop the bill?

BISHOP KICANAS: I don’t know that we’ll be bringing the lawsuits forward. Those will be brought forward by, certainly, others, but we will review those, and perhaps consider being a friend of the court where it would be appropriate.

ABERNETHY: Do you think in the end that the bill can be stopped, that the law can be stopped?

BISHOP KICANAS: Well, there is great national concern, certainly concern within our state among religious leaders, among many portions of our community. It has to be addressed that this bill does not well represent the state of Arizona and is not going to resolve the issues that we are facing.

ABERNETHY: Bishop, remind us again of what the church says, what Christian teachings say about the stranger.

BISHOP KICANAS: Every Christian tradition speaks of the importance of welcoming the stranger, that every human being is to be treated with dignity and respect, and so for us in the church that is a core message of our teaching—that all human life from conception till natural death is to be respected, and certainly the migrant is among those who are the littlest and weakest among us, and they need to be respected and treated with the dignity they deserve.

ABERNETHY: But as you know perhaps better than anyone, people feel so strongly about this. Many people in Arizona, they want to stop the illegal immigration, they want to get rid of some, of the people who are already there. They fear crime, they feel changes in culture. You’ve been getting a lot of calls, I’m sure. What do you say to people, many of them, I’m sure, your friends, who say, “We disagree with you on this”?

BISHOP KICANAS: Well, certainly, I first have to listen, to hear what they are feeling, their concerns, their worries, and then try to help them to see what the church is teaching, because a lot of times people haven’t really heard what is being said or haven’t read the law, and so it’s important to encourage them to learn about the situation, understand it better, and most important if they could come to meet the migrant I think some of their fears and concerns would be alleviated.

ABERNETHY: Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona, many thanks.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: We have a story today about a question facing many Orthodox and Conservative Jews who eat only kosher food. Meat is kosher if it has been prepared according to Jewish law and certified so by a rabbi. But what if the plant managers were accused of unfair labor practices? Should kosher certification depend not only on how an animal is slaughtered but on how workers are treated? Lucky Severson reports from Iowa, where a kosher meat packing plant is owned and run by Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn.

LUCKY SEVERSON: This was the scene in the early hours of May 12, when authorities staged a commando style raid on the Agriprocessors kosher meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa. They arrested hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants. But then they uncovered evidence suggesting serious safety violations and child labor abuse by plant officials. People in this small town are still in shock, and the reverberations have rattled and divided the American Jewish community. It’s a debate not so much about the raid itself, but what it uncovered. Rabbi Morris Allen:

Rabbi MORRIS ALLEN (Beth Jacob Congregation, Minneapolis, MN): The Jewish community is going to have to ask, is it enough for us to be satisfied that we have kosher food on our plate? Or are we also concerned that in the fulfillment of the laws of kashrut, which is a fulfillment of a way in which we bring holiness into our lives that there has not been a desecration of people’s dignity in allowing me to fulfill my holy act?

SEVERSON: It was an odd match in the beginning in 1988 when Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn, New York showed up in rural Postville and bought the defunct meat packing plant on the edge of town. But over the years, Christians and Jews lived side by side and both sides seemed to prosper. Agriprocessors grew into the largest producer of kosher food in the U.S. Including the slaughterhouse, the plant employed over a thousand workers, with rabbis supervising the actual killing to make sure it’s done in keeping with Jewish law.

MENACHEM LUBINSKY (Spokesman, Agriprocessor, Inc.): It has to be done by a shochet, by a kosher slaughterer who is a God-fearing Jew.

SEVERSON: In fact, kosher rules are so strict rabbis like Yosi Edelstein work in kosher restaurants and markets to make certain all foods coming in meet biblical standards.

Rabbi YOSI EDELSTEIN (Caravelle Restaurant): A kosher animal is delineated in the Bible, chapter 11 of Leviticus. God says in the Bible what animals may be eaten. For example, only certain types of animals and those animals are kosher only because they have split hooves and chew their cud. Why these are the signs for kosher, we have no idea. God said it. We believe it. Simple as that.

SEVERSON: It’s believed that almost 90 percent of Orthodox Jews eat only kosher food, and around 20 percent of conservative Jews adhere to the tradition. Consumers look for the kosher label much as they do the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. So they were taken aback when the animal rights group PETA took this video and accused Agriprocessors of not slaughtering in a humane way.

ELINORE EHRLICH (Kosher Customer): I do a lot of my kosher meat shopping at Shop Rite, and I have spoken to the manager of the butcher section, and I said I was really very upset and very disturbed about what I had heard about the plant, the Agriprocessors plant in Iowa, and he too was very upset and very disturbed.

SEVERSON: But the consternation over the kosher slaughter and processing of animals has grown into concern over the ethical treatment of humans, of workers, and there are some rabbis now who want to expand the meaning of kosher.

Rabbi ALLEN: We believe that most consumers, when given a choice between a product that says it’s ritually kosher, and a product that says it’s ritually kosher and it’s been produced in an ethical fashion, we’ll choose the latter.

SEVERSON: Nearly 400 immigrants were charged with immigration violations. The men are still in prison or have been deported. The women, mostly mothers, wear electronic monitoring bracelets. And it’s left to religious leaders, like Father Paul Ouderkirk of St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, to feed and care for the moms and kids.

Father LLOYD PAUL OUDEKIRK (St. Bridget’s Catholic Church): The more I talk about it, the madder I get, because we’re going into our fifth month of this. They have these women with no money, no income. Plus they need food, and shelter, and so on. So Immigration is asking us to pay for their being incarcerated right on the streets of this town.

SEVERSON: Father Paul introduced us to Rosa Samora, mother of two daughters whose father was taken to a Missouri prison. For five months she has been wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet, leaving her unable to work or to leave town.

ROSA SAMORA (speaking in Spanish)

Father OUDEKIRK: She said, “There isn’t much I can do because I, because I depend so much on the charity of the church here.” So even if her husband were deported, she wouldn’t have enough money to go with him.

SEVERSON: The Agriprocessors raid was the biggest of its kind in U.S. history. Company spokesman Menachem Lubinsky questions the government’s motives.

Mr. LUBINSKY: I’m not going to be the one to accuse anyone of being that selective to pick on that company because of the way they look. Maybe they look like Hasidim, maybe they’re Jewish. I’m not going to deny that their very entry into Postville, Iowa wasn’t under the most friendly terms. I believe that there was something here that just didn’t add up.

SEVERSON: But Rabbi Allen, who leads a Conservative congregation in Minneapolis, says he doesn’t think Agriprocessors was targeted because it’s operated by Orthodox Jews, but because they treated their workers poorly. He points to the over 9,000 criminal misdemeanor charges authorities have filed against the company for, among other things, hiring underage workers and putting them in hazardous jobs. Rabbi Allen visited the plant before and after the raid.

Rabbi ALLEN: People shared with us unbelievable stories of pain and suffering that they endured because they had no choices. If they raised their voice, they could have been deported back, and they really didn’t have any place to turn to.

Mr. LUBINSKY: The government’s going to have to prove that the management knew every day that these people were of underage. Remember, the imperative for these people was they wanted to make money. They wanted to help their families, and as in every immigrant group, they’ll do anything under the sun to get those jobs and to bring money into the house.

SEVERSON: Rabbi Allen says Leviticus details kosher laws, but there are equally important laws about the treatment of workers in Deuteronomy 24.

Rabbi ALLEN: You should not abuse the needy and destitute labor, whether a fellow countrymen, or a stranger in one of the communities of your land — and one text telling us what kind of meat to eat isn’t written in boldface, and another text telling us about how to treat the worker isn’t written in small print.

SEVERSON: Rabbi Allen is pushing a plan to add an additional symbol to the kosher certification — a “justice” certificate that says the kosher product meets biblical, ethical standards as well. He says he’s received enthusiastic support for his justice certificate from rabbis across the religious spectrum, but certainly not all.

Mr. LUBINSKY: I think it’s more that the Orthodox feel, look, we are — we’re the basic customers. We buy this product 365 days a year. We’re interested in kashrut the way it was for 3,000 years. We’re not interested in redefining it.

Rabbi EDELSTEIN: In America there are plenty of labor laws to deal with that, and if the government is not doing enough to enforce it, then you just have to step up what the laws are doing already.

Rabbi ALLEN: It’s a religious concern, and we should never leave to the government those issues that are the responsibility of a particular religious community to address.

SEVERSON: Even though some Jewish leaders are opposed to the notion of a justice certificate, the idea may be gaining steam among Jewish consumers.

Ms. ERHLICH: I discussed it with my rabbi, and he’s not happy about putting this into a solid written down kind of thing. Certain things should be done without having to put them down, and yet behind this movement I think there is something worthwhile.

Rabbi ALLEN: This is a major undertaking. This is the first time that a religious community has staked, has set out to say that it is possible to demonstrate that good corporate citizenship is something that can be rewarded from a religious point of view.

SEVERSON: The Agriprocessors plant has hired a new person to run its operation with promises to make things better. The plant itself is not operating nearly at capacity because not enough people can be found to do the unpleasant work, and the illegal immigrants are still waiting to learn their fate.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Postville, Iowa.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now a report on the divisions over immigration. With Congress unable to agree on immigration law reform, many local governments are trying to act on their own to discourage illegal immigrants from settling in their towns. Some say that’s just protecting their communities, but others call it racism. A federal court has ruled that an anti-immigrant ordinance in Hazleton, Pennsylvania is unconstitutional, but that decision is being appealed, and until it’s settled other local governments are acting. One place in which opinion has been sharply polarized is Northern Virginia, as Lucky Severson reports.

Chris Pannell

CHRIS PANNELL (Resident, Manassas, Virginia, speaking during meeting of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors): I have to tell you this is one of the happiest days in my life.

LUCKY SEVERSON: Chris Pannell is a fourth-generation resident of Manassas, Virginia and she is happy, to say the least, that the county Board of Supervisors approved a tough new measure to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Ms. PANNELL: I’ve certainly prayed about this matter for many, many years. It’s just devastating. It’s heartbreaking, too.

SEVERSON: She is referring to the negative impact she thinks the influx of immigrants has had on her community, especially illegal immigrants.

Ms. PANNELL: I feel that all of these things — the crowding of our schools, the trash, overcrowding in the house — all together are just changing quality of life for us, and I can’t put a price tag on the quality of life that’s lost here.

BRUCE E. TULLOCH (Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, speaking during meeting): We want everyone to enjoy the American dream, but the American dream must be earned. It cannot be stolen.

SEVERSON: Local and state governments have approved hundreds of tough new immigration resolutions since Congress failed to pass national legislation. But some religious leaders, like Father Robert Menard, say they are deeply troubled by the tone of the debate — that it goes against the precepts of all the major faiths. Father Menard is also disturbed about what is not being discussed.

Father ROBERT MENARD (St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Triangle, Virginia): I think one of the great sins is the silence that is echoing around this topic. The whole discussion seems to be around the question of law. No one’s talking about the values to care for those who are being oppressed — to treat the alien in the land with respect and dignity.

Father Robert Menard

JOHN STIRRUP (Supervisor, Gainesville District, Prince William County, Virginia): In terms of where we are seeing a lot of the complaints about illegal immigration.

SEVERSON: Supervisor John Stirrup says the outcry he hears from constituents has everything to do with the law. He introduced the Prince William County resolution, in his words, “to stop the bleeding.”

Mr. STIRRUP: We have literally millions of illegal aliens crossing into — crossing our border every year with no stem to the flow.

SEVERSON: John Stirrup’s resolution is said to be one of the strictest of its kind in the country.

Mr. STIRRUP: Many folks have raised the question is this going to be a door-to-door search or are people going to be stopped on the street and asked for their papers? And that’s the furthest thing from the truth.

SEVERSON: The resolution is being studied to determine if it’s constitutional, but as it stands now the new law says anyone who is seeking public services can be questioned about their immigration status. If they’re without proper ID, they can be deported. The same is true with a minor traffic violation.

Mr. STIRRUP: An officer stops you for an infraction of the law, whether it’s a violation of federal, state or local law, and the officer has probable cause to believe that you are here illegally, he may ask you that question. And if the answer’s affirmative, then he may detain you.

Fr. MENARD: It’s causing concern and, in some cases, real fear.

SEVERSON: Father Robert Menard says the anti-immigrant fervor is creating a culture of fear on both sides.

Fr. MENARD: People fear to go across their street, or to knock on the door and to get to know their neighbor, whether they are from one culture of another. And so the suspicion builds.

SEVERSON: There was a palpable fear at this labor center in Herndon, Virginia. Dozens of Hispanics, mostly undocumented, show up here every morning to find a job where they can earn $80 to $100 a day.

Abel has been in this country five years trying to support the five children he couldn’t support in El Salvador. He says the jobs are drying up because employers are afraid.

Jaime’s visa has expired. He says it’s very hard to be away from his six kids, but he could barely feed them when he was in Peru. He thinks Americans are decent people who don’t understand his situation.

Edwin Andrade, a local church pastor, says the controversy has left Hispanics under a cloud of suspicion, judged guilty by association, by the color of their skin — even those here legally.

(to Pastor Andrade): Does it concern you that people would look at you and say you could be an illegal?

EDWIN ANDRADE (Pastor, Nueva Rivera Presbyterian Church, Sterling, Virginia): Yeah. Does it concern me? Yeah, to a degree. It has happened. It happens all the time.

SEVERSON: Edwin and other church volunteers sponsor a lunch for the migrant workers and offer some comforting words the workers rarely hear.

Pastor ANDRADE: We want for you to have a place. We want you to have a place that you feel you are welcome in; that you don’t have to look over your shoulder.

SEVERSON: Jose and his wife are here illegally. Their child was born here. Jose says he came from El Salvador to escape poverty — that he does jobs most legal residents wouldn’t do. He has a message for Americans.

JOSE (through translator): I would like them to know that there is no Hispanics here who has come to hurt you.

Ms. PANNELL: I hear of crimes being committed around here. You know, I’ve heard of several people who have taken their trash out getting robbed at knifepoint.

Mr. STIRRUP: I think what people are concerned about is the lawlessness that has come with illegal immigration in the area, and it starts with those homes that are grossly overpopulated.

Ms. PANNELL: And there’s usually 10 or 15 cars at night there.

SEVERSON: Chris Pannell took us on a tour of her neighborhood.

Ms. PANNELL: When you see 20 people on a porch like, for example, like back there at a time, it’s pretty telling that’s probably not your typical family.

SEVERSON: You say you have more rats in the neighborhood?

Ms. PANNELL: Yeah, we’ve never seen rats in the neighborhood until recent months when the trash has gotten up really tall.

Fr. MENARD: I think it’s important that we name the sin that is part of every community and every tradition. I’m speaking specifically of racism.

Ms. PANNELL: It’s not about race at all. It’s very simple. It’s about legal versus illegal.

SEVERSON: One thing that riles critics of illegal immigrants is that they send such a large amount of their earnings back home, reportedly as much as $45 billion last year.

Pastor ANDRADE: The fact is that a lot of people who are undocumented do pay taxes, because the IRS provides a temporary tax number which they can contribute to the system.

OMAR (through translator): When I came to this country, I started paying taxes right away. I have always paid my taxes.

SEVERSON: Omar and Jesaina have been in the U.S. seven years. They have a young son and another child on the way.

(to Omar): If it gets too bad, will you go back to Honduras?

OMAR (through translator): Eventually we would return, but our intention is to fight to stay here because we have made an important part of our life here. .

SEVERSON: One reason so many immigrants have moved to Northern Virginia is because of the explosive growth of new construction. Contractors are often desperate for workers.

(to Mr. Stirrup): What do you do with employers who employ illegals?

Mr. STIRRUP: Well, that was not part of our resolution. We anticipate resolutions beyond what we’re doing now.

SEVERSON: Until recently, Omar had a full-time job which he lost when his employer became afraid that he might be visited by immigration authorities. These days, Omar can barely find day work.

OMAR (through translator): I feel that it is a great injustice to be treated as we are being treated, because we come here to work hard. We give a lot back to this country.

JESAINA (through translator): This law makes life very difficult for us. I cannot return to my country. I don’t want to return to my country, because life is very hard there.

PANNELL: I’m still compassionate. But they’ve broke the law, and I still believe those people need to go back home.

SEVERSON: Father Menard says among Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions civil law has always been subservient to values and judgment.

Fr. MENARD: If your family is struggling to survive, then to steal a piece of bread is okay. It’s not only okay it’s something that you’re required to do by your moral responsibility to provide for your family.

SEVERSON: Jose says he had heard about the American dream before he came here.

(to Jose): Do you think you will find it?

JOSE (through translator): Maybe some day, somewhere, somehow. But I don’t think in this country, because in this country they don’t want us.

SEVERSON: The county recently closed down its day-work center, so it’s even less likely that Jose and many others will find the American dream in this country as long they’re here illegally.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Herndon, Virginia.

ABERNETHY: All those on camera in that story gave us permission to use their pictures.