Take Action: Contact Congress about the Immigration Executive Order
Stand Up Republic is in agreement with the Trump Administration that America’s national security must be of the highest priority, including a strong border security strategy and immigration policies that thoroughly vet all who seek to come here.
However, President Trump’s executive order on immigration fails to meet that objective. From its hasty drafting and release before the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, or Homeland Security were consulted, to its betrayal of the fundamental principles upon which this nation was founded, this policy makes us weaker, not stronger.
Moreover, the White House has claimed national security reasons to justify this policy, while ignoring legitimate concerns that it will actually make us less safe. As Stand Up Republic co-founder and former CIA operative Evan McMullin said:
“Every single victory in the war on terror has been accomplished with the assistance of Muslim allies, from the intelligence that helped us locate and kill Osama bin Laden to the many local translators throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. The President’s executive order makes us weaker, not stronger, by alienating our allies who risk their lives and the lives of their families to assist us and making our ongoing efforts to recruit new partners even tougher.”
The Trump Administration has engaged in egregious misrepresentations and scare tactics regarding Muslims, refugees, green card holders, and other aspects of our immigration system to justify this policy. According to the Cato Institute, not one refugee (from Syria or any other country) has been implicated in a major fatal terrorist attack since Refugee Act of 1980 was enacted, setting forth procedures for vetting refugees who wish to come to America. As CNN reported, “the primary perpetrators of the major terror attacks have mostly been US-born citizens or permanent legal residents originally from countries not included in the ban.”
The time to take action is now, to urge our Congressional representatives to speak up, clearly voice their opposition to this executive order, and demand that the President work with them, the people’s representatives, to enact a better policy.
The specific solution should be decided by Congress, after they are able to have a full, transparent, and bipartisan debate about the best path forward, including consultation with the experienced national security and legal advisers in our Departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security.
Find Your Congressional Representatives
Every American is represented by one member of the House of Representatives, based on the Congressional district in which you live, and two Senators who represent your state.
Contact your U.S. House Member (includes a link to search by your zip code): http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
Contact your U.S. Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/
At the end of this post, we have a “Congressional Honor Roll” of the Republicans who spoke up early in clear opposition to the policy, along with a link listing all those who have criticized it in any capacity. If your Senator or Representative is listed as opposing the executive order, you should still contact them, to express your support and to encourage them to hold fast to that position (or oppose it more overtly if they have been vague).
Congressional offices get a lot of negative phone calls and emails attacking them, but it’s just as important — and oftentimes, more influential — to contact them and offer praise when they do something right.
Best Strategies for Contacting Congress
Your first step should be to look up your Congressional representatives on the links above and read their instructions for contacting their offices. Your focus should be on the Representatives and Senators who actually represent you; most offices will ignore communications from people outside their districts or states.
It’s also best to contact the Congressional offices directly, either with the contact form on their official website or through your own email program. Third party websites that claim to help you contact Congress tend to function more as email database collectors, there’s no way to guarantee your message will actually be sent, and even if the message is sent, they are often viewed as spam and ignored by the offices.
Regardless of how you contact your Congressional representatives, you should always be polite and professional, state clearly the reason you are contacting them, and provide identifying information so that they know you are a constituent and can reply to you personally if needed.
The best way to contact your representatives will vary from office to office (again, you should review the instructions on their websites). You may wish to reach out in multiple ways: for example, send an email and follow up with a phone call. A few notes on specific methods of contact:
Phone calls: All Congressional office phone calls are logged in the computer system by issue and indicating whether the call was for or against the specific issue. Make sure you have a good connection and aren’t in a noisy environment so you can be heard. For best results, be prepared to quickly explain the main points of your issue and share your name and contact information.
If you can’t get through on the main D.C. office line, call a district office; the calls get logged the same way.
E-mail: Like phone calls, e-mails are logged by the Congressional offices. Include your name and where you live, so it’s obvious you are in their district.
Do your best to be as clear and concise as possible: the reality is that staff are unlikely to take the time to read a 38 paragraph dissertation on your issue. If you do have additional research or information to offer, summarize it and offer to share if they request it.
Social media: Social media is not logged by the Congressional offices like the other methods of contact, but it is still worth considering. Some offices will respond to Facebook and Twitter posts, but even if they don’t, there are still benefits to reaching out this way. Because social media posts are publicly viewable, they can encourage other people to take action, help shape the media narrative, and put pressure on the Members to act.
Remember to tag the correct username for the Member, and their press office account, if they have one. There are exceptions, but most Congressional Twitter accounts should have the blue check mark indicating they are verified accounts.
If you do post on social media in response to this article, please use the hashtag #StandUpRepublic so we can easily find your posts and share them.
In-person: In addition to their offices in Washington, D.C., every member of Congress has a district office (Senators will have several around the major areas of their states). You are highly unlikely to actually meet with the Member, but the goal should be to have a friendly conversation with a staffer who will pass on your message. If possible, it may be worth organizing a group of like-minded friends to all visit together. In-person visits are hard for staffers to ignore.
Snail mail: This method is also logged but due to security procedures implemented after the anthrax scares, all Congressional mail is delayed about two weeks. This means it’s a poor contact strategy for issues that need quick action.
For future reference, if there is an issue that has time to wait out the mail delay, it’s worth considering sending letters because of the often slightly higher response rate. The assumption from the Congressional offices is that anyone who takes the time to write and physically mail a letter is more likely to be serious and sincere about the issue.
Congressional Honor Roll
Below is the Republican Senators and Representatives who made our initial list of those who opposed the President’s executive order. Others have stepped forward since then, but we think it is worthwhile to give recognition to those who spoke up without hesitation. We also limited our list to those who voiced clear opposition to the policy itself, not simply “expressing concern” about “implementation” of the policy or other vague platitudes. Reason.com has what appears to be a comprehensive list of the Congressional Republicans who have opposed the executive order in any capacity, and it’s worth reviewing to see where your Members stand.
We also recognize that Congressional Democrats have opposed the executive order, nearly unanimously. They should be commended for doing so, but the reality is that with Trump being the newly-elected Republican President and the GOP controlling both the House and Senate, it will be necessary to get Republicans on board if real action opposing this policy is going to happen.
Senate Republicans opposing the executive order:
- Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee)
- Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming)
- Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)
- Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee)
- Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona)
- Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colorado)
- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina)
- Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona)
- Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio)
- Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska)
- Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina)
House Republicans opposing the executive order:
- Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan)
- Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colorado)
- Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Virginia)
- Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pennsylvania)
- Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania)
- Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas)
- Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois)
- Rep. Leonard Lance (R-New Jersey)
- Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine)
- Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida)
- Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York)
- Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio)
- Rep. Mark Walker (R-North Carolina)
