Poll: 8 of 10 evangelicals reject clergy's push for amnesty; 29% want border closed -- By Paul Bedard, The Washington Examiner

Christian ministers pushing for immigration reform, even suggesting that the Bible requires illegals to receive work permits, are out of touch with their flock of hundreds of millions, according to an extraordinary new poll that revealed the sharp division among evangelicals worshipers and their leaders.

On the eve of a major Christian convention Monday, the new NumbersUSA poll provided in advance to Secrets found that just 12 percent of 1,000 likely evangelical voters believe that the Old Testament verses on the “stranger among us” mean the government should give work permits and legal status to illegal immigrants.

In addition, 29 percent said the border should be shut to future immigration and that the government and employers should offer jobs, and even higher than minimum wage pay, first to poor Americans, especially blacks, Hispanics and younger workers.

“Evangelicals showed particular concerns for black and Hispanic Americans, younger less-educated Americans of all ethnicities and the disabled, all of whom have very high jobless rates and whom many employers say they find it difficult to recruit,” said the poll release provided to Secrets to put pastors on notice that they have strayed.

Most evangelicals, 73 percent, said that, instead of bringing in more immigrant workers, employers should be ‘required to try harder to recruit and train, Americans from those high-unemployment groups. And most evangelicals, 68 percent, said they are willing to pay higher prices if it is necessary for employers to raise wages to fill jobs with Americans instead of adding more foreign workers.”

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