Student government representatives on the equity and belonging committee hosted a congressional call-in event Friday, voicing opposition toward increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding as Congress approaches a new deadline.
The U.S. Senate passed a bill Jan. 30 providing temporary funding for the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 13, which is awaiting a vote from the U.S. House of Representatives. Lawmakers are now negotiating new guidelines for ICE before the deadline.
ASM leaders encouraged students to voice their opposition to ICE's recent escalation in cities like Minneapolis, encouraging students to call lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.
“Senators and representatives pay attention to when you call, and it’s heard,” ASM Sustainability Chair Caitlyn Kenney told The Daily Cardinal. “If you don’t tell them what you need, they’re not going to do what you want.”
She argued that “everyone” should be consistently reaching out to their local representatives so constituent concerns are heard.
ASM said they wanted to simplify the call-in process for students, so the event provided information sheets on the DHS reforms that Congress will vote on by the Friday deadline and a script template with office phone numbers and other resources to assist attendees while they make phone calls.
This event follows a broader student and community movement in Madison denouncing ICE’s actions in Minneapolis, which resulted in two fatal shootings. In January, students and activists held multiple rallies on the UW-Madison campus and the surrounding Madison area to protest ICE’s involvement in the fatal shootings, with some demonstrators raising concerns around ICE surveillance tactics and urging UW-Madison to become a sanctuary campus.
