Immigration Politics: Clergyman says immigration key to growth

Clergyman says immigration key to growth - The Boston Globe: "Urging minority groups to unite and assert their influence on policy makers in Massachusetts and across the country, the head of a prominent interfaith group quoted Scripture and drew cheers at a State House rally yesterday.

“When William Bradford and the Mayflower pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620, they did not bring any immigration papers,’’ said the Rev. Hurmon Hamilton, president of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization. “When John Winthrop arrived in 1630 with the next wave of New Englanders . . . they were not met with a wall built to keep them out.

“Just as undocumented immigrants from Europe, in the person of John Winthrop and William Bradford, and undocumented immigrants from Africa . . . helped to build the old America in the then-New World, undocumented immigrants today are needed to build a new America in this new global world, and we need to say yes to that.’’"