With Congress back home during the recent recess, constituents made sure to raise their voices. In her latest for the blog, America’s Voice Education Fund’s Van Le recaps the many efforts of constituents to get answers “on what their members of Congress are doing about immigration reform – and how they’re standing up to Trump’s agenda.”
As Le recounts:
Constituents are fired up and mobilized about the issue, while Democrats are leaning in, and Republicans are pretending to be more pro-immigrant than their party really is — both in response to pressure from their voters.
[…]
Voters and advocates around the country showed a willingness to engage on immigration this Congressional recess – Arizonans chanted “no stupid wall” at Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), while in Fauquier County, Virginia, some 150 residents told their sheriff off for wanting to support detainer requests from ICE.
In Colorado, advocates interrupted a private meeting with Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) by bringing in a mariachi band to play a love song and demand that Gardner hold a public forum.
“It was a gift,” said Hilda Nucete a program director of Conservation Colorado, one of three groups behind the interruption. She said the band played the Spanish song “Where Are You, My Heart?” which is about “when the guy really messes up and you’re trying to get back the girl, so we’re trying to get (Gardner) to fall in love with us again.”
And in Oregon, constituents refused to let Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) get away with easy answers on immigration. Walden said in his town hall that all Americans are immigrants and that he supports comprehensive immigration reform. But attendees continued to challenge him.
Read Le’s entire piece online here.
