PLANO, TEXAS — More than 30- religious congregational representatives attended the Dallas Area Interfaith (DAI): Collin County Cluster seminar held at the West Plano Presbyterian Church.

DAI, a Dallas metropolitan organization, is made up of more than 60 religious congregations that focus on providing democratic solutions, as well as, bringing positive change in solving community issues.

The key issue governing the meeting was the challenges facing the community due to the lack of comprehensive immigration reform.

The seminar shone factual information regarding immigrants and their impact on the community in areas such as crime, the economy, cultural diversity and communication challenges. A key concept of the meeting was faith and respect for everyone regardless of legal status.

Bishop Kevin Kanouse of the Evangelical Lutheran church of America said that the majority of believers have a good vertical relationship with God but that more people need to have a horizontal relationship with others — in respect to people having their faith in the right place but not necessarily respecting and welcoming each and everyone.

The keynote speaker was Ernest Cortes — director of the Southwest Region of Industrial Area Foundation (IAF), a foundation that promotes social change. Cortes has analyzed factual information on immigrants and has found that immigrants are one of the principle thriving factors that make America an economic success. He explained that without the current population of immigrants the economy would collapse in a downward spiral.

Council members Sally Magnuson, Scott Johnson, Mabrie Jackson, Collin County Commissioner Phyllis Cole and Plano Chief of Police Gregory Rushin all stated that they where willing to work with DAI for a comprehensive approach to the immigration challenges that face the community.

Chief Rushin said a lot of success and improvement has come from a community program they adopted called Unidos, which is geared at improving the life of Hispanic residents. Unidos has helped promote trust between police and the Plano Hispanic community, therefore providing a safer environment for all the people in the community, which is the ultimate goal.

Public officials and clergy agreed that community is more important than regulating federal immigration issues. They believe the community would improve for everyone if a comprehensive immigration reform were adopted, due to the fact that many residents live in fear, and even endure hostile situations due to the fact that they live undocumented.

DALLAS — At 10AM about 200 motorists crowded the Shell gas station near Mocking Bird station in Dallas this Thursday -all in line for free gas, thanks to an advertising campaign by Verizon Yellow Pages and Superpages.com.

People arrived as early as 12 hours to be sure they got a one of the 200 cards with the prepaid 40-dollar balance.

The giveaway was too important for people struggling with the rocketing prices of gas, some even stayed overnight to assure their place in line.

This promotion was one part of the 20 nationwide giveaways that also includes Grand Prairie.

As gas prices increase more and more of these promotional giveaways have been fueling advertisements through out the nation from: hotels.com offering 50-dollars, and car dealerships offering to pick free gas for a year with the purchase of a new car.

Political campaigns are also offering to give away discounted rates on gas while they pick up the difference out of pocket as a statement on how the economy has fluctuated in these past eight years. It is projected that gas prices will increase to more than four dollars by the end of the year, and with that said –we can only hope for more promotional free gas to fill up our pockets.

Gas prices are blowing through the roof. Egg and milk prices are rising and families are losing their homes. The economy is not running on three wheels — it’s running on two.

Yet the new mayor of Farmers Branch Texas, Tim O’Hare, is making his top priority giving the boot to undocumented residents.

In his blog, O’Hare responds to a concerned citizen questioning the fact that what Farmers Branch needs to address is the status quo of the economy — not immigration issues. He responds by stating that Spanish-speaking kids take up a lot of the money the schools would use for other things, such as giving English-speakers a higher quality education, and how landlords are allowing too many people to live in one house (up to ten, he says) therefore devaluing the price of the land because the landlord doesn’t care about the looks of the property.

He goes on to say how uninsured motorists hike up the price of insurance and how Parkland (a hospital in Dallas) spent millions on healthcare for undocumented residents. He ends the response by saying that it’s not even about the economy, it’s about the law.

In a time of economical hardship, his main objective is to spend tax money addressing federal issues.

Another winning mayoral ticket that thinks making illegal immigration should be his city’s first priority is Carrollton’s new mayor Ron Branson. Branson, who also plans to compare notes with suburbia neighbor O’Hare, wants to form committees to expedite the process of ridding the city of undocumented immigrants.

Ron Branson states on his website that he welcomes new ideas, and that he plans to address the immigration problems by enforcing current laws and tightening up other areas of enforcement. His main objective seems to be to industrialize and revamp Carrollton as a destination, not just a ride-through kind of city.

The win for both mayors, based mainly on an immigration platform, raises many issues that are not being brought up. Are all the people that lost their homes and who have limited budgets too busy to vote?

What about other issues like small businesses closing due to distribution problems and restaurants suffering due to increased prices or environmental issues, economic stability, stagnant enrollment at universities, children in foster care, the homeless, the rising price of gasoline — these concerns aren’t being addressed, yet these are issues in every community throughout the country.

And what about Mayors defying federal laws? Where does that lead?

It leads to more laws on the books targeting a certain group of people and not addressing the issues that impact the day-to-day survival of everyone.