The warm days of August are here, and while Congress is off on recess there is still plenty of ways for you to make your voice heard. Top actions this week include helping make sure the 2020 census is as inclusive as possible, protecting pregnant moms, supporting a real paid family leave policy, and making sure you are registered to vote in the upcoming general election.

As always, thank you for participating and sharing with your friends, too! 

1. Help us spread the word! Check your voter registration and ask your friends to do the same.

If it feels as if this is an important voting year, it’s because it is. With Supreme Court Justice seats needing confirmation, families being separated and detained, and important legislation that will inform the trajectory of this country for years to come, there is a lot of work ahead of us and it cannot be done unless we get out the vote like never before.

We’re making it super easy for you to double check. Click here for a quick registration check. And be sure to confirm that your information (including your address and name) is correct. If not, take a moment to update that. If you’re not registered, you’ll be walked through on how to register. It’s quick and painless.

More importantly, it’ll ensure that your voice is primed and ready for the 2018 elections and beyond. See you at the polls!

Together, we will be a registered force for families in this country!

2. Tell Wells Fargo — Stop Financing Pain For Corporate Gain!

BACKGROUND: We are outraged by Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase's roles in financing CoreCivic and GEO Group, two large for-profit prison corporations that are profiting off the separation and pain of families. Private prison companies hold contracts to operate hundreds of prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers across the country that are being used to incarcerate and separate families. Join us to demand that you immediately stop financing CoreCivic and GEO Group. Let’s use our power as consumers to cut off the corporate money behind Trump’s unconscionable immigration policies! 

3. Remove Discriminatory Citizenship Question from 2020 U.S. Census!

BACKGROUND: The 2020 U.S. Census is coming up soon and it is a BIG deal. It’s critical that the U.S. Census gets an accurate headcount of everyone in the United States, but here's the bad news: The Trump Administration is using the upcoming U.S. Census as a backdoor attack on the immigrant community by adding a discriminatory question related to citizenship, with the goal of discouraging participation and threatening the accuracy of the count. But it’s not too late to stop the addition of this question! We have a chance to stop this from happening by adding our voices to the public comments being collected by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

4. We must stand up for pregnant immigrant moms!

The United States should be a country that values families and the lives of pregnant women.

Yet between December 2017 and April 2018, ICE has detained more than 500 pregnant women under policy directives from the Trump administration that removes protections for pregnant women in immigration detention.

At least 5 women in the last few months have miscarried while in ICE custody. They spoke of being ignored when they were obviously miscarrying, described their jailers as unwilling or unable to respond to medical emergencies, and recounted an incident of physical abuse from officers who knew they were dealing with a pregnant woman. Women in detention are denied medical care, shackled around the stomach and abused.

This is inhumane and unacceptable.

Urge your Senators to support the Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act to protect the health and safety of pregnant women in detention!

5. Rubio Proposal: A Dangerously Flawed Plan That Provides No Help at All to the Majority of Families That Need Paid Leave

In early July the U.S. Senate Finance Committee held a very important hearing on paid family and medical leave. That the hearing even happened is a huge testament to the relentless work of MomsRising members like you pushing Congress to act on the critical need for paid family and medical leave!

But the hearing also made it clear that we are still facing threats to advancing comprehensive, affordable, and sustainable paid family and medical leave. Right now that threat is taking the form of a dangerously flawed proposal being advanced by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio that would raid Social Security to give income to parents of a new child, jeopardizing the future retirement security of new parents while at the same time totally neglecting the majority of people who take leave, whether that’s for family caregiving or personal medical needs!

(Read our statement here.}