Local religious leaders of nearly a dozen faiths yesterday called on the federal government to grant legal status to undocumented immigrants, even as the most recent immigration legislation passed in Congress moves in the opposite direction.

Standing in Lower Manhattan, with the Statue of the Liberty in the distance, faith leaders from Sikh to Jewish to Muslim drew on their diverse traditions in presenting a moral imperative to reduce the time families wait to be reunited and to create a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants already in the country.

“In our day-to-day work, we see the suffering and the human toll caused by our immigration laws,” the general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA, the Reverend Bob Edgar, said. “Families are kept apart or forced to risk their lives to be reunited. They are desperate to be together, to provide for each other, and to contribute to their communities. It is immoral and unjust in the eyes of God for our president and Congress to make this a crime.”

Although President Bush has shown support for increased legal immigration, in December the House passed legislation that creates new enforcement measures. The bill, sponsored by Reps. James Sensenbrenner, a Republican of Wisconsin, and Peter King, a Republican of New York, would create harsh new enforcement regulations and would make illegal entry into America a felony. A provision that has outraged clergy across the country is contained in a section on “alien smuggling.” Clergy, as well as doctors or social workers who protect, transport, or otherwise assist illegal immigrants could face jail time for their actions.

“The idea that you can’t minister to people unless they have papers smacks of Nazi Germany or anywhere with dictators,” Father John Duffell, of the Church of the Ascension in Manhattan, said. “It’s sad that we’ve come to this.”

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Mr. Bush made clear that he did not think an enforcement-only bill would solve America’s broken immigration system. Emphasizing that immigrants are needed to keep the economy alive, he said, “We must have a rational, humane guest-worker program that rejects amnesty, allows temporary jobs for people who seek them legally, and reduces smuggling and crime at the border.”

While the president has said he favors new legal avenues for immigration, his speech indicated that he does not support allowing the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country to remain indefinitely.

The Senate is expected to consider immigration reform shortly, including various proposals for guest-worker programs.

The New York protest was part of a larger national movement of religious leaders making a united interfaith push for immigration reform.

“We are really thrilled that a local group like the New York Immigration Coalition and all the faith-based groups came together to make their voices heard,” the vice president for government relations of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Gideon Aronoff, said.