| Swim19 |
12-14-2021 04:37 PM |
‘Every Minute of the Day’: Inside the Green Card Backlog’s Call Campaign to Senators
I remember the days we used to do this for DREAM Act:
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“We know Padilla’s office opens at 9 a.m., so that’s when we get started,” said Kenny, a green card backlog advocate from Princeton, New Jersey visiting Washington to push for immigrant relief provisions. “Durbin’s office opens at 10 a.m., so that’s when we start calling them. Then we keep up the pressure with a caller for every minute of the day.”
Kenny estimates that 63,000 calls have originated in the group chat over the last three months, which has around 10,000 Telegram users who often identify themselves by their name or initials plus their Congressional district.
Detailed instructions and call scripts are shared in the chat, which focuses this week on two obscure immigrant relief provisions in the Build Back Better bill sent to the Senate from the House. Sections 60002 and 60003 deal with green card recapture and early adjustment of status, both of which would greatly benefit the green card backlog community.
Daily tallies of calls to targeted senators are kept via the honor system in the Telegram chat, with users posting updated call counts alongside the initials of the senator’s office on Capitol Hill that has been called throughout the day.
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On Monday, Kenny said his chat registered 850 calls, but that there are larger Telegram chats doing calls to advocate for the green card backlog, too, which is estimated to include 1.2 million immigrants, mostly from India, China, Mexico, and Colombia.
For some in the green card backlog, calling Senate staffers is a family affair. “I have kids in middle and high school,” said Pankaj Jain in Oregon’s 1st Congressional District, represented by Democratic Rep. Suzanne Bonamici. “They make their calls while going to the school.”
“It’s a lot,” said a Durbin staffer of the green card backlog’s call campaign, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “They are very persistent.”
Staffers for Sens. Padilla and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) confirm they too receive massive call volumes at their respective offices from green card backlog advocates, but no lawmaker in Congress is has been scrutinized as hard by the green card backlog, or as long, as Durbin.
“Durbin’s staff have (refused) to listen to our story, saying they need to keep the lines free for constituents,” said Sushama Desai, a California-based backlog advocate. “Padilla’s staff has been nice so far.”
Tejashri Joshi, another backlog advocate on Telegram, echoed Desai. “Alex Padilla’s staff definitely empathize with our situation,” said Joshi. “Sen. Durbin’s go by the script that they have no knowledge of what language has been sent to the parliamentarian and only need my zip code to pass our message along.”
“For Sen. Durbin, we are people of color, but for his staff we are just a zip code,” said Jain. “Although his staff was polite to the kids.”
“Obviously we have to prioritize constituents,” explained the Durbin staffer when asked why some callers are sometimes asked for a zip code. But some green card backlog advocates aren’t buying it.
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https://www.latinorebels.com/2021/12...dbacklogcalls/ |
