About a year ago, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints issued a statement affirming principles of a balanced and common-sense approach towards immigration reform. In June 2011, the Church issued a much more specific statement on immigration, specifically calling for "compassion" when considering what to do with the roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

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Unfortunately, I'm still mired in a ridiculous amount of school work, so this will be a short post. I wanted to highlight the following press release from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which demonstrates the Church's support for principles of reasonable immigration reform in the "Utah Compact." As you will notice, the Church's position is clearly divergent from the knee-jerk "deport them all" and "place landmines on the border" viewpoints of too many of our extremely conservative fellow citizens (ironically including many Latter-Day Saints). To me, the content of the Utah Compact is an adherence to the LDS principle of "moderation in all things." Extreme positions on immigration from both the far left and far right are unacceptable. One of the very few policy positions of our former president, George W. Bush, that I actually supported was his failed attempt at reforming our country's immigration system, which would have balanced the need for better enforcement while recognizing the reality on the ground, which is that millions of illegal or undocumented immigrants have truly assimilated into our society and are productive and valuable members thereof. Without further pontification on my part, here is the Church's press release and here is the official text of the Utah Compact.

I'm sure we've all heard conservatives lament about how illegal immigrants are stealing American jobs. Well here is an incredible opportunity for real Americans to take back the jobs illegals have taken from us. According to United Farm Workers, a labor union for agricultural laborers, over 50% of farm laborers in the US are undocumented (a.k.a. illegal) immigrants. The UFA has created a website devoted to helping legal Americans find work in the agriculture sector as laborers. So please tell all of your unemployed family members and friends to visit this website so they can take back an American job from an illegal immigrant.

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