Gathered in the same seaside village where an Ecuadorean immigrant was recently beaten and knifed to death by a gang of local teenagers, Long Island clergy today demanded immigration solutions from our nation’s leaders.

The clergy said the broken immigration system and unworkable laws that guide it contributed to a poisonous atmosphere and ill-will toward immigrants in local communities.

In a statement, The Long Island Council of Churches, a ecumenical group with 800 member churches, called for “practical immigration policies” and “workable solutions.”

“Current immigration policy violates everything our religious traditions teach us about compassion for the sojourner among us,” said Rev. Tom Goodhue, the council’s executive director.

The council released its statement (endorsed by Jewish and Muslim leaders who were also present) at a press conference in a synagogue in Patchogue, where Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero was killed in a Nov. 8 hate crime attack.

The council invested six months in staking out a common position on immigration among members, said Goodhue. Its statement calls for an immigration policy that reunites families, meets the economy’s needs, and includes a clear path to asylum, residency and citizenship for those who might qualify.

“We call on advocates on either side of this issue to work to find and advance common ground,” said the Rev. Mark Lukens, president of the Long Island chapter of The Interfaith Alliance.

Also supporting the council’s statement were the American Jewish Committee and Long Island Wins, a pro-immigrant public information campaign.

Patchogue is in Suffolk County, which is the subject of a federal investigation into its reporting of the incidence of hate crimes against Latinos. Also, after Lucero’s death, County Executive Steve Levy, a Democrat, came under fire after publicly minimizing the murder’s significance.

Acts of violence against immigrants, like the brutal attack on Lucero, “are like ugly icebergs,” said Lukens. “Underneath them are oceans of ill feeling.”