Friend,

This Pride Month, my heart is with everyone fighting for collective liberation. I see you and love you. Especially as more states target transgender youth, we must continue to fight across our country to ensure that everyone can live with safety and dignity. And I will not back down until that happens.

I’m proud to serve on the LGBT Equality Caucus in Congress. This year, I was an original cosponsor of the Equality Act, which would expand civil rights protections, prohibiting discrimination in public and private spaces on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. It passed the House, but the fight is on in the Senate.

Our team has been busy these past few months, addressing injustice through bold policies and staying rooted in community. Read on for updates!

(Photo: Me rallying with local advocates at Parker Village in support of the THRIVE Act for environmental justice.)

Recent victories

We successfully passed a number of progressive bills and amendments through the House in the past few months, including:

• The Consumer Protections for Medical Debt Collection Act, which would prevent the collection of medical debt for two years and would ban medical debt from a “medically necessary” procedure from ever appearing on your credit report. Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. adults have at least one medical debt collection listed on their credit report, which means they may be denied housing, transportation, or other necessities because of a sudden health crisis or a visit to the emergency room. That hits particularly hard in communities like mine, where residents already face challenges with access to credit.

• The Improving FHA Support for Small Dollar Mortgages Act, which is a step toward expanding homeownership opportunities. In my district, nearly 50% of owner-occupied homes are valued at under $70,000. But banks have unfairly and greedily decided that small-dollar mortgages are ‘riskier.’ According to the Urban Institute, lenders have denied small-dollar mortgage loan applications at double the rate of denial for large mortgage loans. The bill we passed would start to correct this economic and racial injustice.

• We also passed important amendments to the voting rights legislation known as the For the People Act. These amendments help high school students (especially in marginalized communities) register to vote and extend hours of voting locations so that working-class Americans don't have to choose between their job and their vote. This is especially important as we face the growing conservative movement to restrict our voting rights, particularly the rights of Black and brown people.

Your support helps make all this work possible.

If you can, please chip in to support our continued work! You can donate here.

We’ve also made progress in our fights for economic, environmental, and immigration justice, including holding corporations and ICE accountable, pushing to raise the minimum wage, and protecting the human right to water. Check out more information below. But first:

Have you gotten vaccinated?

It’s free and safe for anyone aged 12 or older. And now, 90% of Americans live within five miles of a vaccination site. To find a location near you, go to https://www.vaccines.gov/ or text your zip code to 438829.

I got my shot and I’ve been fighting for equitable vaccine access. I’m encouraging my constituents to get vaccinated and have been touring vaccination facilities in my Congressional district. Here’s a photo of my visit to Detroit’s TCF Center with Michigan’s Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist:

During the month of June, many vaccination sites will be offering extended hours, including pharmacies that will be open 24 hours every Friday night this month. Uber and Lyft are still offering free rides to and from vaccinations.

And starting this month, parents can get free childcare while they get vaccinated. You can drop off kids at hundreds of YMCA locations, plus KinderCare, Learning Care Group, and Bright Horizons. Find more information at https://www.vaccines.gov/incentives.html.

Please share these updates with your friends and family, and let's work together to get our communities vaccinated. Thank you!

OK, back to updates about what we’ve been up to in Congress and in my community:

Environmental justice and the human right to water

• Our Emergency Water is a Human Right Act is moving through Congress, with a hearing last week in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Thank you to all the water warriors who worked tirelessly to bring national attention to this crisis! This bill would prohibit water and electricity shutoffs, ensure water affordability protections for low-income households, and require providers to reconnect disconnected water, home energy, and electric services. Click here to sign our petition pushing the White House to prioritize water as a human right.

• I’ve also been working with my colleague and friend Rep. Debbie Dingell to push the Biden-Harris administration to issue a national moratorium on water shutoffs. New research from Cornell University and Food & Water Watch found that a nationwide water shutoff moratorium in the pandemic would have prevented nearly 500,000 COVID-19 infections and saved the lives of approximately 9,000 Americans.

• Good news: Health and Human Services just launched the Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program, which would expand access to affordable water for low-income families. But we’re continuing to urge the White House to do more, including requiring reconnections for everyone regardless of the size of their debt and funding plumbing repairs that will prevent future unaffordable bills, breaking the shutoff cycle. We must always take our opportunities to address the root causes of water insecurity and leverage federal dollars for the long-term solutions our residents deserve.

• Stay tuned as we fight to include the Emergency Water is a Human Right Act in upcoming infrastructure packages!

• Last week, I was proud to join local activists to support the transformational THRIVE Act, which would invest $1 trillion per year for 10 years into our communities to address environmental racism, create 15 million jobs, and cut climate pollution in half by 2030. Too often our frontline communities are told that we have to choose between the environment and the economy, between good paying jobs and breathing clean air, but we reject that false choice. We can have both.

	Engage Michigan @EngageMichigan
	.@RashidaTlaib joined local activists yesterday to rally for the THRIVE Act, which would help protect our climate and create millions of good, green jobs for our communities. https://t.co/IekyLG3J93

Fighting for workers’ rights and a liveable wage

• I joined local 7UP workers striking for respect at their workplace (photo above). Production increased by 130% during the pandemic thanks to these essential workers, who deserve fair treatment and equal pay. I stand with workers across the country who are rising up and demanding that their work be recognized and valued. Thanks to their strike action, they got the concessions from management they deserve.

• As part of continuing to push for a liveable wage, I joined One Fair Wage organizers to volunteer as a server at a local restaurant, Saffron De Twah. (See photo below.) Knowing how hard it is to live off of tipped wages, local business owner Chef Omar pays his employees a fair wage. We need to replicate this across the country.

• I co-introduced the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act to take on corporate greed by raising taxes on corporations that pay their top executives at least 50 times more than the pay of a median worker. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the gross income inequality and pay gap between CEOs and their employees, which has been growing for decades. Enough is enough. The workers make the majority of the profit, not the other way around. Click here to sign our petition in support of the bill.

	Rashida Tlaib @RashidaTlaib
	Become a grassroots cosigner of the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act! At a time when the pandemic has exposed and worsened income and wealth inequality, it’s critical that we pass legislation that levels the playing field between workers and corporate executives. https://t.co/2cwL8BOl47

Pushing for immigration justice

• I met with and heard directly from children fleeing violence in their home countries, who are detained in the Carrizo Springs Office of Refugee Resettlement facility for unaccompanied children. As part of a Congressional delegation to visit the facility, I asked a young boy from Guatemala what he wanted me and the President to know, and he replied: “That I’m a human being.” It gave me chills when he said it. We must ensure a just and humane immigration process for these children and others who are just seeking human dignity.

• I also led a Congressional letter in response to the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) authorization for ICE to destroy records related to misconduct and abuse. We urged the Biden administration and NARA to take immediate action to ensure that this critical documentary evidence is not erased from history. The Department of Homeland Security’s ongoing push to destroy en masse potential evidence of wrongdoing is a direct attempt to cover up criminal behavior and impede Congressional oversight. I will continue to expose and fight our immigration detention system’s human rights abuses.

You made it to the end of this email! Thank you for reading this selection of updates from our work these past few months. And thank you for being a part of our movement!

If you’d like to chip in to support our ongoing work for justice and equity, please click here.

Together, we’re building the world we all deserve, where we can all thrive.

In partnership,

Rashida