Thanks to UUPLAN for this alert.
CALL YOUR SENATORS & REPRESENTATIVE TODAY.
Sample Script: “I’m your constituent from [CITY/TOWN], and I am strongly OPPOSED to Senators Cotton and Perdue’s RAISE Act. This bill would permanently cut refugee resettlement numbers to historic lows, make family reunification inaccessible, and essentially only permit individuals who have certain education levels, employment history, and English-language ability to enter the United States. I urge you to reject this bill and do everything in your power to see that it does NOT become law.”
Feel free to share a personal story about standing in solidarity with refugees and immigrants.
Background: Senators Cotton (R-AR) and Perdue (R-GA) introduced the “Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy” (RAISE) Act, which has garnered support from President Trump and white nativists. We urge all Members of Congress to reject this anti-family and anti-refugee bill that would:
- Essentially only permit individuals who have certain education levels, work history, English-language ability, or high-paying job offers to enter the United States.
- Reduce legal immigration channels by 50-70 percent, with an 85 percent cut to family-based immigration.
- Permanently cap refugee admissions at 50,000 per year, the lowest resettlement goal in U.S. history, during the largest global refugee crisis in world history.
- Eliminate the ability of U.S. citizens to sponsor their brothers and sisters, and create an impossible process for them to sponsor their parents for five-year visas, during which time the parents would not be able to work and the child would have to cover all expenses and health insurance costs.
- Stop green card holders from sponsoring their children over the age of 18.
- Make family-based visas for spouses and children harder to access by reducing the number of visas available based on the overall number of individuals who overstay their visas – punishing people awaiting family reunification due to unrelated individuals’ actions that they cannot control.
- Bar individuals from applying for U.S. citizenship if their family sponsor has not reimbursed the government for any expenses incurred.
- Leave approximately four million people, who have been promised a visa but are waiting in line for it to become available, without any opportunity to reunite with their family members, by deleting applications for eliminated visas that have more than a one-year wait.
- Eliminate the Diversity Visa lottery, which provides up to 50,000 visas annually for immigrants who do not have access to employment- or family-based visas.
- Not increase skills-based immigration, or increase jobs or wages for the U.S.-born, as such policies have failed in the past, since immigrants do not depress wages or reduce job growth.
You can also tweet at your Representatives & Senators:
- @[REPRESENTATIVE] Welcome #refugees & #families & #immigrants. Say NO to the RAISE Act #RefugeesWelcome #NoBanNoWallNoRaids #GreaterAs1
- @[SENATOR] The RAISE Act would separate families, reject refugees & dishonor American values. Stop this anti-family, anti-refugee bill. #VoteNo
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