Action: call governors about refugee resettlement

[redbird]

The administration wants to allow states, cities, and towns to allow, or block, refugee resettlement in that city or state. (There's a lawsuit challenging this, but who knows what will happen?)

HIAS is asking Americans to call their governors and tell them to come out in favor of refugee resettlement. That link is to a page that will place a call to your governor's office for you, but I read the email and wrote my own script.

In case anyone wants it, here's the first part of what I left on Governor Baker's answering machine:

"Hello, my name is [real name]. I’m a constituent from Belmont. Please tell the governor to declare his support for refugee resettlement in Massachusetts." (I then said that this is particularly important to me because my mother was a refugee.)

Comments

[loligo]

As is my mother. I grew up in a big northern city where plenty of people still had recent European immigrants in their families. But now I live in a small town at the far southern end of the Midwest, where European immigration basically stopped at the turn of the 20th century. I'm blonde and have a vaguely Nordic last name... when I tell people that my mom spent the first five years of her life in a refugee camp, they look absolutely baffled...

(I try not to discuss politics directly at work, but I do share personal stories when I think it might shake up people's assumptions. )

[j00j]

Same! My mother's family came over from Germany when she was 2. I don't believe she spent any time in a refugee camp, but her parents did.
I do like to point out to people that they for some reason never assume my parents weren't born here.

[teaotter]

Thank you for this! My governor has already come out in favor, and I called to thank her.