The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), representing 40 denominations with more than 45,000 congregations, welcomes President Obama’s announcement yesterday that he will work to fix our broken immigration system. Yesterday’s speech at the American University reflects the principles that the NAE outlined last October in its immigration resolution.

“President Obama raised immigration higher on the national agenda,” said Leith Anderson, NAE President. “Now we are looking forward to Republicans and Democrats joining together to write and pass immigration reform legislation.”

The NAE calls on President Obama to build on the momentum for reform by working directly with congressional leaders to enact immigration reform legislation, and the NAE urges members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, to move quickly to implement immigration reform.

“Unlike some contentious issues facing Congress, immigration reform has already been extensively analyzed and debated,” said Galen Carey, NAE Director of Government Affairs. “The broad outlines of a bipartisan consensus on immigration reform are well documented. There is no reason Congress cannot act now to fix our broken system, enhance our security, and lower our deficit by adding millions of workers to our tax rolls.”