Latino Mormons speaking out against Romney

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When Honduran-born Antonella Cecilia Packard converted to the Mormon Faith 20 years ago, she said it was like "coming home."

The Catholic-educated Packard, who grew up in "the middle of Mayan ruins," appreciated the faith's strong sense of family and conservative values. She also saw her own history in the Book of Mormon with stories of migrations, tragedies and triumphs of a people many Mormons believe are the ancestors of some present-day Latinos.

But two decades after her conversion while a college student at Mississippi State, the 43-year-old Packard finds herself on a new mission: defeating Mitt Romney and any Mormon politician who betrays what she sees as a basic Mormon principle of protecting immigrants.

As Romney continues to seek the Republican presidential nomination while rarely discussing his faith, a growing number of vocal Hispanic Mormons say they intend to use Mormon teachings as a reason to convince others not to vote for him. They have held firesides (equivalent to a tent revival) on immigration, protested outside of Romney campaign events and have traveled across state lines to help defeat other Mormon politicians with similar harsh immigration stances.

"Yes, we are happy that we have a Mormon running for president," said Packard, a Saratoga Springs, Utah, resident and member of Somos (We are) Republicans. "But a lot of us aren't supporting him because of his stance against immigrants."

While stressing the Mormon faith's historic connection to converting immigrants, Latino Mormons point directly to immigration stories in the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' recent statements against policies targeting immigrants. They also view Romney's stance against proposals giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship as hypocritical since Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, who had five wives and 30 children, sought refuge in Mexico after passage of an 1882 law that barred polygamy.

"We view immigration as a God event," said Ignacio Garcia, a history professor at Brigham Young University and a Sunday school teacher at his Mormon ward. "The book says no one comes to the Land unless they are brought by God."

Those stories in the Book of Mormon, Garcia said, give Hispanic Mormons a powerful religious argument to use, especially since most believe they are descendants of the Lamanites, an indigenous group in the Americas described in the Mormon sacred text. According to the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites lived in the present-day American Southwest, traveled south and face years of hardship, and are prophesized to eventually return to the Promised Land.