With reports that comprehensive immigration reform legislation being shaped by the U.S. Senate’s “Gang of Eight” may reduce the number of family visas for aspiring citizens, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and a group of faith leaders today reiterated that family reunification is a core tenet of creating a commonsense immigration process.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), architect of the Ryan/Romney/Republican budget-for-the-1% plan, told a TV interviewer this month that his budget blueprint follows and upholds the social teachings of the Catholic Church. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and other Catholic leaders disagree. The USCCB says Ryan’s budgets failed to live up to Catholic “moral criteria.” Yesterday, more than 90 priests and faculty members at Georgetown University—a Jesuit school—sent Ryan a letter criticizing his plan.

With more than 46 million people living in poverty in the United States and unemployment stuck at 9.1 percent, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is calling on other clergy to preach on the issue of   poverty and to educate church members and advocate for the poor and unemployed.

With the economy in crisis, many of the nation’s  religious leaders are speaking out in favor of economic policies that create jobs and spur economic growth. Decent jobs at decent wages are the best path out of poverty and restoring growth is a powerful way to reduce deficits, they say.