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Value Our Families Week of Action
March 29, 2021 - April 2, 2021
Free
Value Our Families Week of Action, March 29 – April 2
Join OPAWL and the Value Our Families campaign for a virtual advocacy week of action from Monday, March 29th to Friday, April 2nd where we will use our stories and our voices to advocate for immigrant families. We are at a critical time to take advantage of the momentum of the first 100 days of the new administration, and fight for permanent solutions that keep families together. To join us, please register here by Monday, March 15th.
No prior experience is needed to participate! We will schedule the lobby meetings for you, and participants will only need to attend a training and the meeting(s). Estimated time commitment for participants: one training (1.5 hours), meetings with your representatives and Senators (up to 3 meetings), and prep with your lobby group (1 hour).
How to Participate
As part of the week of action, we will hold a virtual training on legislative meetings and schedule group virtual meetings with your Senators and/or Members of Congress as well as conduct digital advocacy. Participants will receive:
- Training on Virtual Legislative Meetings (Wednesday, 3/17 at 2pm EST – recording will be made available)
- Schedule of meetings with your Senators and/or Members of Congress
- Resources, Sample Talking Points, and Asks to help guide your meeting
- Value Our Families staff support — each meeting will include an accompanier to provide support
- Week of Action Advocacy and Social Media Toolkits
Policy Asks
We will be advocating that Congress provide a path to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented folks, TPS holders, and DACA recipients — and pass the Reuniting Families Act to reunite and keep families together.
To join us, please fill out the form below and list ‘OPAWL’ as your organization. Your responses will help us schedule meetings with your Members of Congress during the virtual advocacy week.
About Value Our Families
The Value Our Families Campaign exists to protect, preserve, and strengthen the family immigration system and promote an immigration system that is informed by love, empathy, and justice. We are a network of local and national community-based and advocacy organizations who reject attacks and proposed harmful changes to our current family-based immigration system.
Lobbying and legislative visits with 9 offices for the Reuniting Families Act was the beginning of a new chapter in my life. I learned so much about how legislation is made, who and what decides, and witnessed first hand how policy is pushed. These glimpses confirmed what we all know: we must use our voices even if we don’t know how they will sound when we say what we are about to say. We must use our voices to tell stories that no one else can tell.
I sat with a staff member of the Republican congressman who represents my district and took the opportunity to explain to this Trump supporting, pro-waller that he should remember that not only do immigrants not drain our state, immigrants contribute $20 billion to Ohio’s economy. They withstand family separation, partial family reunions, and a Visa backlog holding millions of people in an uncertain waiting period. But I also tried to remind them that even with capital gain, what’s more important is saying there is merit in human togetherness, in families.
I learned to debate, ask, and be specific about one thing at a time in an era where I want to scream a litany of evils against brown and Black communities… I felt a delicious exhaustion from using storytelling as a way to enact political change. Stories are what makes you memorable. Stories create a bridge in books, politics, and life that create the possibility of sharing a few moments of civility and listening… It was the deepening of a new era of my writing and political activism. So, no, I will not go back to where I came from. I am exactly where I belong.