Ask Your Representative to Cosponsor the Uniting American Families Act

by Dave Bennion · 2009-02-08 22:32:00 UTC
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This week, take the opportunity to move the country forward on two fronts--LGBT rights and immigrant rights--by calling your congressional representative and asking him or her to cosponsor the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA).  What a great Valentine's Day gift this would be for binational same-sex couples currently facing forced separation!

From Immigration Equality (mirrored at change.org's Gay Rights blog):

Rep. Jerrold Nadler plans to reintroduce the 'Uniting American Families Act' on Feb. 13.

You can make the bill a success by convincing your Representative to support the bill from Day One.

Reintroducing the bill with as many cosponsors as possible will show powerful momentum for the rights of gay and lesbian bi-national couples!

Please call your Representatives and ask them to be an original cosponsor of the "Uniting American Families Act of 2009"

1. Find out who your U.S. House Representative is.  Go to:
http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/index.htm
enter your address, and you will be provided the name of your U.S. Representative.

2. Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your U.S. Representative.

3. Tell your representative's staff:
I am calling to ask Representative__________ to be an original cosponsor of the 'Uniting American Families Act of 2009'.  To cosponsor, he/she must contact Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who is the lead sponsor, at (202)225-5635.

The U.S. government discriminates against gay and lesbian bi-national couples by not allowing us to sponsor our foreign-born life partners for immigration.  Because of this, we face the terrible choice of separating from the person we love or leaving our country.  As Americans, we should not have to choose between family and country.  Please ask Rep. _________________ to cosponsor the 'Uniting American Families Act of 2009' by reaching out to Rep. Nadler before February 12.

Thanks for asking your member of Congress to celebrate love this Valentine's Day by cosponsoring UAFA!

And Rachel Tiven, Immigration Equality's executive director, left his helpful note in comments to IE's post above:

If you click on http://www.immigrationequality.org/template.php?pageid=152 you can see the co-sponsors from the last Congress. Keep in mind that right now, it's most important to focus on the people who are *on* that list. If your Member of Congress co-sponsored the bill last time, ask him or her to return as an original co-sponsor in the new Congress.

More on the UAFA here and here.

[Image: Immigration Equality]

Dave Bennion
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