Well, we can contact Congress. You can tell Tom Cotton and David Perdue that they should think twice about bringing this vote to the floor because they might want to be reelected. There are a lot of steps before this becomes law. It needs to be voted 60-40 to allow debate on the Senate floor. Then there needs to be 51-49 in favor of voting to pass or not pass it to the House, which will then decide whether to send it to Trump, who would very likely sign it. Therefore, there’s a lot of time, and given Trump’s crawling pace, there’s plenty of time to get involved.
I don’t see a way to offset this Act because you can’t just bring people here in your suitcase, but there are plenty of things you can do to make sure Trump doesn’t make this a law. Given the nature of how this law was presented, I doubt he’d convert it into an executive order, and he just upgraded the Opioid Epidemic to a national crisis, which means he’s focused on that even more than before in addition to the issues with North Korea. So I’m pretty sure this won’t get done anytime soon.
This means we could get the debate on the Senate floor AFTER the 2018 elections. That’s more than a year from now, and we’d also have to wait until new Senators get seated in January 2019, but if Trump can be busy with other things until then, we have a chance.
We should bring as much evidence as we can possibly can to show that this RAISE Act is going to harm the things that Trump cares about. That is how you do it. You show Trump that his owngoals will not be served. You show that you you’ve researched what he wants, and that this is not going to give him the country he wants.
Study what we don’t like so we can know exactly how to stop it. That’s what we need to do.
Finally, we need 60 votes to get a floor debate, and most Democrats will probably be willing to at least hear this bill, but it’ll take 51 senators to even allow a vote! We only have 52 Republican senators. That’s not much. We can change that in 2018. Here’s a list of upcoming elections in 2018, broken down by Republican and Democrats.
The most important thing we can do is remember who we are. This will not go on forever. Immigration reform happens all the time. We haven’t really solved anyway, but there have been many iterations.
Always remember that you are who you are. Whether you support sanctuary cities, deportation, deportation reform, path to citizenship, nationalism, or any other method of dealing with people who want to come in and out of this country, no law can change who you are on the inside. Stay strong in your convictions. If you do want to stop Trump from eventually signing RAISE into law, I’m right there with ya. Don’t get complacent. Don’t let these policies become normalized. Keep fighting.
If you’re someone who is trying to come here, trying to stay here, or trying to have more rights while you are here, I also stand with you.
You’ve read one of my travel experiences. I don’t represent anyone but myself. I have some things in common with a lot of people in this country, but I’ve also met people from around the world with whom I identify in various ways.
One of the guys at the gym I went to a lot in China was from Equatorial Guinea. I could count on him being there, and it made me feel I had someone to talk to who knew both English and Mandarin when my Mandarin wasn’t as good as it is now. We had some good conversations. Equatorial Guinea. Who’d have guessed?
I hung out with some cool people from Seychelles. I had a rather in-depth discussion about history with someone from Siberia. I somehow got a free upgrade, without even asking, to first-class on a Thai Air flight on which I found I have common philosophies with a Kurdish-Jordanian.
Trust me: I identify with you. A lot of us do. We’re gonna help you out. I know you probably can’t wait a long time, and you shouldn’t have to. So we’re going to do everything we can to get you here. We can have a strong economy and wealthy Americans and all of what Trump wants AND bring you here, even if Trump doesn’t think it’s possible.
We’re not all like Trump. Thanks for liking me because you liked Obama, but get to know us for who we really are, and you’ll find that we’re still a loving nation, even if our leaders sometimes don’t know what they’re talking about.
You’ve reached the end of Series 26: The RAISE Act
Read Full Essay