Candidate Questions - Civil Rights
Immigration/Refugee Policy
Let’s get organized before the next presidential candidates come to town! It’s hard to know what questions to ask, but here is a list that Quad Cities Interfaith created. If you have additional questions you think should be asked, please contact our Office Manager, Amber Bordolo and we will add to this list.
If you attend a candidate’s event, print off this list (see the download link below) and have it handy in case you get a chance to ask a question. Listen carefully to the answers on the topics below. Take notes if you can, and report back to us in the Blog Comments below. We want to know what you hear and think!
These are also good questions that should be addressed to your State legislatures when they hold legislative sessions or campaign for re-election.
1. As President, will you work to re-unite families separated at the border and change this policy so that future children and families are not separated while their legal status is in limbo?
2. What is your position on the Central American migrant caravan asylum-seekers at the border?
3. As President, will you work to ensure that tear gas is not employed against any persons at the border, like that which took place in November of this last year?
4. In Iowa, legislators have passed a state bill to prohibit local municipalities from establishing local sanctuary laws. Are you willing to speak out against these efforts at outlawing city and county rights to establish local sanctuary status?
5. We are against ICE workplace and community raids that unnecessarily terrorize, and often separate, families. A prominent example took place in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa in the past year. What is your stance on the role of ICE in our local communities?
6. We are against laws that put undue burdens on local police forces to do the work of area ICE agents. We don’t think these measures make our communities more safe; in fact, they make people less likely to report crime for fear of retaliation or deportation. What is your stance on the role of local police in matters pertaining to immigration enforcement?
7. Do you support driver’s licenses for immigrants and other local efforts such as Community ID programs?
8. Do you support efforts toward providing a path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants in the United States?
9. There has been a call to overhaul our immigration policies. What provisions do you think should be a part of revising and changing our nation’s immigration laws?
10. As President, will you take leadership in permanently eliminating “The Muslim ban?” Will you support policies that increase the numbers of refugees the U.S. accepts?
11. What role do you think the U.S. has in accepting refugees from countries where we currently or have previously actively supported or engaged in military conflict in those countries?
12. Given that the policies and actions of our government have helped to create the conditions which people in the Migrant Caravan are fleeing, what are our responsibilities to these asylum seekers? How should they be treated at the border?
13. We stand strongly against the profit incentive behind incarceration of immigrants and citizens promoted by the prison industrial complex. Will you reject campaign contributions from banks and corporations that have a profit incentive in the building of private prisons and immigrant detention centers?
If you attend a candidate’s event, print off this list (see the download link below) and have it handy in case you get a chance to ask a question. Listen carefully to the answers on the topics below. Take notes if you can, and report back to us in the Blog Comments below. We want to know what you hear and think!
These are also good questions that should be addressed to your State legislatures when they hold legislative sessions or campaign for re-election.
1. As President, will you work to re-unite families separated at the border and change this policy so that future children and families are not separated while their legal status is in limbo?
2. What is your position on the Central American migrant caravan asylum-seekers at the border?
3. As President, will you work to ensure that tear gas is not employed against any persons at the border, like that which took place in November of this last year?
4. In Iowa, legislators have passed a state bill to prohibit local municipalities from establishing local sanctuary laws. Are you willing to speak out against these efforts at outlawing city and county rights to establish local sanctuary status?
5. We are against ICE workplace and community raids that unnecessarily terrorize, and often separate, families. A prominent example took place in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa in the past year. What is your stance on the role of ICE in our local communities?
6. We are against laws that put undue burdens on local police forces to do the work of area ICE agents. We don’t think these measures make our communities more safe; in fact, they make people less likely to report crime for fear of retaliation or deportation. What is your stance on the role of local police in matters pertaining to immigration enforcement?
7. Do you support driver’s licenses for immigrants and other local efforts such as Community ID programs?
8. Do you support efforts toward providing a path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants in the United States?
9. There has been a call to overhaul our immigration policies. What provisions do you think should be a part of revising and changing our nation’s immigration laws?
10. As President, will you take leadership in permanently eliminating “The Muslim ban?” Will you support policies that increase the numbers of refugees the U.S. accepts?
11. What role do you think the U.S. has in accepting refugees from countries where we currently or have previously actively supported or engaged in military conflict in those countries?
12. Given that the policies and actions of our government have helped to create the conditions which people in the Migrant Caravan are fleeing, what are our responsibilities to these asylum seekers? How should they be treated at the border?
13. We stand strongly against the profit incentive behind incarceration of immigrants and citizens promoted by the prison industrial complex. Will you reject campaign contributions from banks and corporations that have a profit incentive in the building of private prisons and immigrant detention centers?
Mass Incarceration and Restorative Justice
1. Our groups in the Quad Cities are dealing with racial disparities in rates of out-of-school suspensions. As President, what will you do to address these and other racial inequities in our nation’s public school systems?
2. There our racial inequities across the board in our public schools here locally, and throughout the nation. What will you do to close the opportunity and achievement gap in public education between low-income and students of color, relative to their more affluent white peers?
3. What is your take on the recent bi-partisan criminal justice changes at the federal level? What do you think is the next step towards improving our current criminal justice system?
4. As president, what will you do to provide opportunities for criminal ex-offender re-entry programs and to create employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated persons to reduce recidivism?
5. Do you support “banning the box” policies that require ex-offenders to disclose their felony history in job applications?
6. The U.S. remains the most over-incarcerated nation on the planet. What steps will you take as President to decrease the numbers and reduce racial disparities in populations of offenders behind bars?
7. We stand strongly against the profit incentive behind incarceration of immigrants and citizens promoted by the prison industrial complex. Will you reject campaign contributions from banks and corporations that have a profit incentive in the building of private prisons and immigrant detention centers?
2. There our racial inequities across the board in our public schools here locally, and throughout the nation. What will you do to close the opportunity and achievement gap in public education between low-income and students of color, relative to their more affluent white peers?
3. What is your take on the recent bi-partisan criminal justice changes at the federal level? What do you think is the next step towards improving our current criminal justice system?
4. As president, what will you do to provide opportunities for criminal ex-offender re-entry programs and to create employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated persons to reduce recidivism?
5. Do you support “banning the box” policies that require ex-offenders to disclose their felony history in job applications?
6. The U.S. remains the most over-incarcerated nation on the planet. What steps will you take as President to decrease the numbers and reduce racial disparities in populations of offenders behind bars?
7. We stand strongly against the profit incentive behind incarceration of immigrants and citizens promoted by the prison industrial complex. Will you reject campaign contributions from banks and corporations that have a profit incentive in the building of private prisons and immigrant detention centers?
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