Works for any representative or senator, any district, any party. Copy everything in the box below into a document, fill in the [brackets], print, sign, and mail. Include your campaign email address from Step 1 as your contact. Enclose copies (never originals) of any case documents you have.
[Your Name]
[Your Street Address]
[Your City, State ZIP]
[Your email or campaign email: [email protected]]
[Date]
The Honorable [Representative/Senator Full Name]
[District Office Address — from Step 2]
RE: Proclamations 10949 and 10998 — End the Nationality-Based Visa Freeze.
Congress Must Act.
Dear [Representative/Senator] [Last Name]:
I am your constituent, and I am writing about the travel bans and visa
freezes created by Presidential Proclamations 10949 and 10998.
[ONE PERSONAL PARAGRAPH — pick the one that fits you, delete the rest:
• "My [husband/wife/fiancé(e)/parent/sibling], [name], is from
[country]. [His/her] case was [approved / paused mid-process /
unable to even begin], and we have been [separated/waiting] since
[date]."
• "I am an employer in [city]. The [employee/case] my business
depends on has been frozen by these proclamations."
• "I am a student admitted to study at [school] in the United
States, and I cannot begin or continue my studies."
• "I was selected in the diversity visa lottery the U.S. government
itself runs — and my selection is expiring while I wait."
• "I am a [refugee/asylee] whom the United States has already
granted protection — and the cases reuniting me with my family
have been stopped indefinitely."
• "I am not directly affected, but I believe a system that blocks
people by where they were born, at every stage, is wrong."]
These proclamations do not block people because of anything they have
done. They block people because of where they were born — across
every pathway of our immigration system: families, workers and
employers, students and scholars, diversity visa winners, and the
relatives of refugees and asylees the United States has already
granted protection. At every stage: applications just beginning, cases
paused mid-process, visas already approved. [If you have documents:
"I enclose copies of [my approval notice / the embassy's letter
pausing our case], which shows [our situation]."]
The State Department says exceptions are available case by case. Its
own internal guidance, produced in federal court in Chikumba v. U.S.
Department of State, No. 1:26-cv-00332 (D.D.C.), instructs that
exceptions be "used rarely" — and lists visiting U.S. citizen family
members, work, education, and even hardship as reasons to DENY. A
process that denies by design is not a process. And a federal court
has already ruled the ban unlawful as applied to the families of
asylees (A.A. v. State, E.D. Va., July 29, 2026).
There is also a constitutional issue: in 8 U.S.C. § 1202, Congress
assigned visa adjudication to career consular officers. That authority
has been moved to political appointees. A statute passed by Congress
should not be overridden by an internal memo.
I ask you to take five actions, all within Congress's existing power:
1. Hold oversight hearings on the exception process and the Chikumba
guidance;
2. Restore the immediate-family exception that existed under
Proclamation 10949 until December 2025;
3. Press for the resumption of processing at every stage — new
filings, paused cases, and approved visas;
4. Urge the State Department to preserve DV-2026 eligibility for
winners from affected countries;
5. Press for the end of the proclamations — restoring individualized,
case-by-case adjudication under the law Congress wrote.
[If you have a specific case:] I would also ask your office to open
a congressional inquiry into our specific case. I will promptly sign
any privacy release your staff needs.
I would appreciate a written response to [your campaign email
address / this address]. Congress must act.
Respectfully,
[Your Signature]
[Your Printed Name]
[City, State]
Enclosures: [list any documents you enclosed, or delete this line]How to use this template
- Replace every [bracketed] item; delete any paragraph or fill-in option that doesn’t apply to you
- Keep your personal paragraph short — two or three sentences is all it needs
- If your member is a Republican, consider the Family or Competitiveness template
- your member is a Democrat, consider the Leadership template
- Print, sign in ink, and mail to the district office (from Step 2)
- Enclose copies of case documents — never originals
- Keep a copy of what you sent; when the office replies, send it to [email protected] (Step 5)