Restoring and Fully Funding Humanitarian Pathways (Refugees/Asylum Seekers)
Since January 20th, President Trump’s indefinite refugee ban has abandoned 120,000 people conditionally approved for resettlement. The administration also cancelled flights for over 10,000 refugees approved to enter the United States.
Trump’s pause on the United States Refugee Admission Program (USRAP) has kept families apart and stranded displaced individuals in perilous conditions—many suffering from pauses in life-saving foreign assistance.
Eliminating funding to resettlement organizations has also deprived refugees in the U.S. of critical support services.
Since Trump took office, the U.S. government has resettled only hundreds of refugees—most of them white Afrikaners. All refugees deserve safety. The U.S. has a legal, moral, and international obligation, affirmed by the Refugee Act of 1980, to protect the world’s most vulnerable. Yet thousands with credible claims, who passed rigorous vetting, are being turned away.
I call on [insert legislators’ names] to work with the administration to restart refugee admissions for all seeking safety and set a cap of at least 125,000 for Fiscal Year 2026. Congress must also pass adequate funding for refugee resettlement and foreign assistance. Each person bears the Light within — a sacred spark calling us to act with courage and compassion so all may live in dignity and peace.
Pathways to Citizenship
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, community members who came to the U.S. as children and have called this nation home for decades, are again under threat. Despite years of bipartisan support for protections, the Trump administration continues its sweeping campaign against immigrants. It’s been 4 decades since U.S. immigration reform. [Sens. X and Rep.], relief for Dreamers and undocumented immigrants is long-overdue.
On August 3rd, El Pasoan, Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago, was detained by immigration enforcement. Here since age 8, Xóchitl posed no threat and has held DACA status since 2012. She’s currently permitted to work and protected from deportation until 2026. Despite this, Xóchitl remains indefinitely detained as the government pursues removal proceedings.
Xóchitl’s story is just one in a larger trend: the Trump administration ignoring DACA protections and detaining Dreamers. The over 500,000 DACA holders in the U.S. are America. Undocumented immigrants are relatives, friends, teachers, business owners, and co-congregants. They have U.S.-citizen spouses and children, and contribute annual ranges of $89.8 billion in taxes and $299 billion in spending power.
DACA was never meant to be permanent. Pathway to citizenship legislation, such as the bipartisan Dream and Promise Act of 2025, is the answer. We know the way to protect Dreamers, like Xóchitl– does Congress have the will?
Ending Indiscriminate Immigration Enforcement (Mass Detention/Deportation)
[Insert suggested thank you language if your Members of Congress has been engaging in detention oversight visits. E.g: Thank you for your ongoing effort to conduct detention oversight and ensure accountability in immigration enforcement.]
In July, masked agents in unmarked cars forcefully detained an Oregonian father right outside of his child’s preschool, a nightmare no child or parent should face. Sadly, enforcement in once protected locations– schools, hospitals, places of worship– is becoming more common.
Mahdi Khanbabazadeh, a citizen of Iran, studied in the U.S., married a U.S. citizen, and was awaiting a final decision on his green card when he was detained. This story is one piece of a larger alarming trend.
[Note feel free to swap Khanbabazadeh’s story example above with a public story in your local community.]
On January 20th, 2025, the Trump administration rescinded a decades-long sensitive locations policy to protect societal interests, ensure people’s access to essential care and services, and safeguard religious liberties. Since removing the immigration enforcement limitation at or near sensitive locations, agents have detained community members in places where families worship, children gather, and even in courthouses where people are having their day in court.
As this violent campaign escalates, Congress must protect the foundational spaces of public life and pass the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act. This legislation would codify the sensitive locations memo and ensure that parents are not torn from their families as Mahdi so cruelly was. ICE does not belong in any place of sanctuary.
Military Entanglement in Immigration Enforcement
Since January 20th, President Trump blurred the lines between the military and immigration enforcement, falsely conflating a civil concern with war-like responses.
Trump acted swiftly to enact executive orders incorrectly naming migration flows at the border a national emergency, deploying troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. Since then, the president’s misused military personnel as immigration officials, repurposed military bases– like Guantanamo Bay– as detention facilities, and even wastefully used military planes for deportations.
The president also invoked the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), an antiquated wartime authority that grants the president sweeping authority to detain and deport individuals from countries deemed “foreign enemies.” Trump used the AEA to deport 252 Venezuelan men with alleged gang ties to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador without a semblance of due process. This summer, the deployment of the National Guard into major cities marked another dangerous conflation of immigration management with warfare, endangering both citizens and noncitizens.
With the signing of the reconciliation package in July, Congress has given the administration $170 billion to further a dangerous campaign that fails to respond to modern migration challenges. As more enforcement funding looms through appropriations, [Sens. X and Rep.], Congress must disentangle war tactics from immigration—a civil law issue—and assert its oversight power and demand accountability in immigration enforcement.