Ok, so I’ve got a bunch of work-related things I’m doing, but when I noticed my Senator hadn’t spoken up about Trump’s travel ban, I sent his office the following note. Just go to your Representative or Senator’s official website, and there should be a simple way to voice your input to your elected official:
This is an Immigration as well as a National Security issue.
I am disappointed that Sen. Toomey has not spoken out against the poorly conceived ban on entry of refugees from the 7 predominantly Muslim countries. There are several reasons why this constituent opposes the measure. Please do not pigeonhole my opposition to any one of the following:
1. On a fundamental level, it violates our fundamental national principles of freedom of religion. It may in part be conceived as a national security measure but it is structured on religion. I think Rep. Charlie Dent has it right on this one. Listen to your successor House Representative.
2. We are a nation of immigrants, and this is a turn against who we are as a nation. We are so much richer as a nation because of these brave, energetic people. Do we want to maintain our national security by becoming in inward-looking people? This policy is just fundamentally, again, contrary to who we are and ought to remain.
3. Even if you accept the idea that we can lower terrorist threats by restricting travel from countries that contain terrorist breeding grounds (too blunt a policy that I do not agree with), this implementation is poorly conceived. I understand green-card holders are no longer being detained–seriously, how can you keep out the engineers, doctors, university professors, hard-working entrepreneurs who have chosen to immigrate and raise their families here–but the ban is still too broad. We need people from these regions to see America for themselves. Putting up a wall simply isolates us, and isolates them. It is a propaganda windfall for the terrorist leadership in these countries and elsewhere. The Iranian anti-American leadership has been hoping to stop interaction with the West. Trump’s policy is helping them achieve that by giving credence to their characterization of America as anti-Islam.
Please be a voice in the halls of Congress, within the Republican Party, and among the politically powerful in Washington to protect our civil liberties against President Trump’s isolationist, authoritarian tendencies.