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Understanding What’s Happening on Immigration

In the following sections you can find policy resources and a step-by-step guide to making a lobby visit happen. Ten months is a long time, and it’s helpful to have a refresher on the basic skills we learned in our August training.

How do Quakers think about migration?

Immigration Enforcement

Asylum and Refugees

Affirmative Protections

Compelling reads, podcasts, documentaries

Books

• Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
• Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora
• The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri 
21-Must Read Books About Immigration

Podcasts

Documentaries/Films

  • Separated - Errol Morris 
  • The Swimmers - Sally El Hosaini
  • The Trek: A Migrant Trail to America | The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper- six part series, with the first here
  • The Infiltrator

Congressional Staff Look Up

How do I prepare for a lobby visit?

1. Watch this 30 minute video training video from our national field organizer!

Video URL

2. Read over this leave-behind. This document has the basic information on our ask for Congress.

3. Write your story! You can use this storytelling worksheet as a guide.

Find an example story here. Although this example is for another issue, you can hear the general structure and framing of a story.

4. Find contact information for the staffer you’d like to meet with, and send an email requesting a visit by telephone or video conference.

5. Make sure you’re caught up on basic background information related to this issue (See resources above.)

6. Structure your lobby visit with this roadmap.

Watch an example lobby visit here. Although this example is for another issue, you can hear the general structure and flow of a visit.

Video URL

What Should I Do After My Lobby Visit?

1. Fill out the lobby report-back form. You can watch this video for more information about how to fill out the form.

2. Send a follow-up email to the staffer you met with.

2. Have any constituents that lobbied for the first time fill out this form.

Past young fellows laughing in front of U.S. Capitol