WASHINGTON (RNS) Members of Congress joined religious leaders on Capitol Hill Wednesday (Feb. 11) to launch a coalition to promote a humanitarian approach to immigration reform.

The new Interfaith Immigration Coalition seeks cooperation from the White House in reforming immigration policies, strengthening due process laws for immigrants and promoting humanitarian treatment of undocumented immigrants.

“A good immigration policy is a policy that, first and foremost, keeps families together,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

Gutierrez, a Catholic, expressed concern that current immigration policies threaten to separate many families. Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., appealed to universal religious teachings on love towards immigrants.

Leaders from the Jewish, Catholic, Methodist, Unitarian, and progressive Christian movements agreed on the need for quick action. Standing with and supporting immigrants is an “urgent duty,” said Sister Eileen Campbell, with the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.

United Methodist Bishop Minerva G. Carcano of Phoenix, Ariz., called for an end to “racist rhetoric” and to the “climate of fear” created by law enforcement officials.

“As people of faith, we cannot and must not stand and will not stand by in silence while young people die, while families are separated, while individual freedoms are ignored, and the immigrant community in the United States is treated unjustly and inhumanely,” Minerva said.

Sojourners founder Rev. Jim Wallis suggested reformers consider civil disobedience to assist immigrants because the issue is a “religious matter.”