Thurs 3/18: Wanted: Postcard writers! D.C. statehood and keeping immigrant families together.

Action #1: Washington D.C. is a living, breathing, racial and civil rights injustice and we need to fix it! DC statehood goes in front of the House Oversight Committee on Monday, March 22!

A member is printing up several thousand postcards!!! JOIN IN! If you’re unfamiliar with the hundreds of years that DC residents have been denied statehood, along with the rights we take for granted, like representation along with taxation, the ability to make laws without federal interference, and being able to call up the National Guard when they need it, here’s our post with lots of information and great videos. (Also 51 for 51 and DCstatehoodcoalition.org ) Both the House and Senate have reintroduced bills to fix this, H.R.51 & S.51– “Washington, D.C. Admission Act. Another important bill – H.R.1 – “For the People Act, declares, amongst many important voting reforms, “…that DC residents deserve full Congressional voting rights and self-government, which only statehood can provide.” (full text) (endorsements).

We need to get all Democratic representatives and senators onboard both bills as cosponsors quickly as possible! And the filibuster should be eliminated, at least for bills like this. There’s no reason the basic rights of the citizens of Washington DC should be held hostage to whether or not 60 Democrats are elected to the Senate.

DIRECTIONS:

• Send me your postcards. They are preprinted. Just fill in the legislator name & sign.
  • Email indivisibleventura@gmail.com with “51 POSTCARDS” in the subject line for postcards to be sent to you along with an legislator address list. We need your mailing address and whether you want just the DEM package (10 senators, 27 representatives, 3 “thank you” cards), the GOP package (50 cards, of course) or both. We are asking participants to provide their own postage.
• “I want to make my own”
  • You are welcome to copy/paste the graphics from here and make your own postcards! The scripts we’re using on the pre-printed cards are here. Copy or use your your own words.
    • To Democrats: Here’s the table of Democrat House and Senate members that have NOT signed on to one or both bills yet and to whom you should direct polite postcards asking them to do so. (Nancy, we know you’ve been busy…)
    • For Republicans: Wouldn’t it be amazing if they actually believed some of the 1776 principles that Trump’s cosplayers were yelling about at the insurrection, and did something to alleviate taxation without representation for over 700k American citizens? LIKE MAKE THEM A STATE!? It doesn’t hurt to ask! Since there are exactly ZERO Republican senators on the list of current cosponsors, we’re just going to send postcards to them all.
  • Mailing Addresses:
    • Representatives here. (Clicking on their name will give you their DC and state addresses.) If your own legislators have already cosponsored the bill, you can use your postcard to thank them.
    • Senators here. 

Action #2: WHAT’S NEXT?’s Postcard Campaign #7 – Families Belong Together/End Title 42

Mailing date: March 23-25:  Join WHAT’S NEXT’s seventh and possibly last postcard campaign, this time addressed to President Biden, Vice President Harris, Alejandro Mayorkas (Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security) and Xavier Becerra (Secretary of Health and Human Services).

DIRECTIONS:

1. Download Postcard #7 (Painting of person at border wall)
2. Print your postcards: Four postcards per sheet, double sided on card stock. You can purchase card stock and cut apart or Avery has postcard stock available that is perforated for separation (4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″, 4 per sheet). If you can’t print double sided, you can print single side. 
3. Write your postcards. The theme for this card is Familes Belong Together. Talking points are suggested here:
   • Title 42 separates families.
   • Families belong together.
   • End title 42.
   • Restore asylum.
4. Address the cards to:
   • The President – The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20500
   • Vice President Harris – The White House, Office of the Vice President, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20500
   • The Honorable Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, 2707 Martin Luther King, Jr. SE,  Washington, DC 20528
   • The Honorable Xavier Becerra Health and Human Services,200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 202015.
5. Apply a 36 cent postcard stamp to each card 
6. Drop your cards in the mail between March 23-25. 
7. EXTRA CREDIT Several What’s Next? participants have asked for additional people to send postcards to. If you would like to run an extra sheet, others you can write to are listed below.
   • The Honorable Antony Blinken Secretary of State US Department of State 2201 C St., NW Washington, DC 20520 
   • Representative Paul Ruiz 2342 Rayburn HOB Washington, DC 20515Speaker Nancy Pelosi 235 Cannon HOB Washington, DC 20515 (Ruiz is the Chair of the Congressional Caucus. )
   • Your members of Congress (Rep addresses here, senator addresses here. (choose your state at the top))

FAMILIES BELONG TOGETHER

“For the past 3 months, many people around the country have been printing out postcards with specific immigration themes, writing short messages on them, and then sending them to top leaders of our country. This is the final postcard of this campaign. It’s probably not the last postcard campaign, but it’s the last of this initial one. 

Of all the themes, end child detention, stop deportations, abolish ICE; this is the most important. Whoever you speak to in the “immigration needs to be humanely reformed” activism circles, they all say the same thing. In order to end all we feel is inhumane, we need to stop the racist and bogus Title 42. 

What is Title 42? Through a health protection authority issued by Congress and used by Department of Health and Human services and Border Patrol to expel asylum seekers or others without “lawful travel documents”. It’s use to reject and expel those crossing the southern border began under the previous administration and continues under President Biden. It literally closed our southern border to anyone seeking asylum. Anyone who came across were denied entry or if they did enter, they were sent back. Many were flown back. They were expelled. It is said to keep us safe from people coming into the country with Covid. That is a lie. The border was open to business as usual so obviously that wasn’t the issue. 

Background on Title 42: The Trump administration intentionally separated migrant children at the border in an effort to discourage those who were fleeing violence from coming to seek asylum. The Biden administration says it is working to reverse these cruel policies. However, Title 42 is still in effect and that means families are still being separated. The Title 42 Expulsion Provision, established under the previous administration, immediately expels all asylum seekers at the border without allowing them to make a case for asylum. The Trump administration used the pandemic as a reason for enacting this inhumane policy. However, the policy is only applied to asylum seekers, all others cross the border freely. Moreover, according to leading public health experts, including CDC doctors, expulsion to mitigate spread of covid has no basis in scientific fact. Children are now exempt from Title 42. As a result, many desperate families are opting to send unaccompanied children across the border alone. That means they are separated from their families and housed at the border or sent to child detention facilities. There are solutions that do not involve separating families and locking up children. While we applaud the change in attitude and effort under the new administration, more can and must be done to keep families together and allow them to seek asylum.”