4.22.26 Action Center Update

Side With Love

Welcome to the Action Center Weekly Update. Each week, we’ll share:

  • A brief analysis of critical issues in this political moment

  • Immediate actions you can take

  • Resources to deepen knowledge and strengthen our collective work to side with love

Nothing is inevitable. Justice movements are built by ordinary people who come together to defeat oppression and nurture a loving world. You are not alone. We have power. Together, we can create a just and thriving future.

Movements are strongest when we act together. Organize with your teams and networks, and take these actions in community. For practical tools, see our Organizing School and Skill Up resources.

Climate Justice

Core Principle: A just and loving world is also a flourishing one. A fossil-free future is possible, where clean energy is a human right and all beings thrive. To get there, we must create new systems, norms, and practices.

The Update:

More than one in four Americans live in a community fighting in court to hold major oil and gas companies accountable for deceiving the public about their products’ role in climate change. At least a dozen states have passed or proposed climate “superfund” laws to make polluters, not taxpayers, cover the growing bill for climate damages.  

Republican lawmakers are fighting back with federal legislation that would grant sweeping immunity to the fossil fuel industry against legal and financial accountability for climate change damages. 

The fossil fuel industry’s allies in Congress introduced the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026 to protect the fossil fuel industry from leftist climate litigation.  This mirrors legislation passed or proposed in several states and reflects a top priority for the American Petroleum Institute - Big Oil’s chief lobbying arm.  

This legislation shows how far some of our elected officials will go to protect polluters and deny people and communities access to justice.  Kathy Mulvey, climate accountability campaign director with the Union of Concerned Scientists said:

Such corporate impunity would twist the knife of the climate crisis that is already directly harming people across the country. Congress must not capitulate to wealthy special interests. Communities deserve the right to hold polluters accountable for the deadly and costly harms they are causing.


Take Action:

  • Sign the Green Faith Multi-faith letter opposing fossil fuel immunity  

  • Share the letter with your networks

  • Call your elected officials to urge them to oppose fossil fuel immunity using the 5 Calls Civic Advocacy platform

Resources:

Freedom Demands We Organize: A National UU Call to Moral Action - online

Tuesday, May 5 8:00 p.m. ET • 7:00 p.m. CT • 6:00 p.m. MT / 5:00 p.m. PT • 4:00 p.m. AT • 2:00 p.m. HT

Join UUs for Social Justice as they host Rev. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center, renowned for her co-leadership of the Poor People’s Campaign: NCMR, for a gathering to help us meet this moment with courage, solidarity, and strategic action.

https://uusj.salsalabs.org/revliz/index.html 

Democracy

Core Principle: Democracy is not a destination but a practice rooted in interdependence and the worth and dignity of all. While authoritarianism consolidates power, we are the majority—and we must organize to build a truly multiracial democracy.

The Update:
After “No Kings,” several key primaries, and escalating ICE occupations, we are witnessing a renewed wave of organizing, mutual aid, and community defense. This week, we also celebrate an important development: the SAVE Act has stalled in the Senate. This voter disenfranchisement bill would have imposed extreme documentation requirements, creating significant barriers to voting for millions—especially poor and working-class people, women, and people of color. The UUA has been part of a broad coalition working tirelessly to defeat this bill. Thank you to everyone who donated, called representatives, protested, and helped educate others about its dangers.

We know the fight for free and fair elections is far from over. The terrain is shifting constantly, and our response must be both grounded and adaptive. That’s why UU the Vote is equipping people of faith with the skills and tools needed to play critical roles in this moment of mass organizing.

We are focused on three key areas:

  1. Strengthening safety and security skills in an increasingly volatile environment—so our communities can stay safe at the polls, in the streets, and online.

  2. Expanding voter contact through phonebanks, textbanks, and door-to-door canvassing, especially around critical ballot measures related to democracy, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, and reproductive freedom.

  3. Building care and support infrastructure that sustains resistance to the cruelty of authoritarian violence and helps revive our collective imagination about the promise and practice of democracy.

Take Action:

Decriminalization & Immigration

Core Principle: Criminalization and dehumanization deny the dignity of our communities. Safety cannot come at the expense of others. As people of faith, we proclaim a future of care, abundance, and mutuality—not domination.

The Update:Amidst a backdrop of increased ICE abductions, horrible conditions in detention facilities, and ongoing war killing civilians and wasting our tax dollars, people power is not just fighting back but winning.   Last week, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti (H.R.1689) passed the House with 10 Republicans and 1 independent joining 213 Democrats to vote in favor. It ill almost certainly not become law but sends a strong statement of public support for TPS ahead of the April 29 Supreme Court oral arguments about TPS. People across the country continue to organize locally to stop detention warehouses from being built in their towns - like this organizing win last week in Maryland that resulted in a Judge’s decision to halt the warehouse conversion for ICE.  When we work together in our local contexts, we build people power to stop the deportation and prison machine. May we continue to roll up our sleeves and work with others because it’s the right thing to do, people’s lives are at stake, and also because it fortifies our spirits to be in the struggle.  If you’re not sure where to start, try some of the actions below.

Take Action:

  • Support Asylum Seekers right to work - Take action this week The Administration is trying to make it impossible for asylum-seekers to work in the U.S.⸺radically undermining the process by proposing an indefinite pause to clear backlogs that could take from 14 to 173 years. This is your last week to submit a comment, and get others to doso, by end of day Friday, 4/24.

  • Support the hunger strikers at Moshannan Detention Center in Pennsylvania seeking humane conditions. Call the Clearfield C0unty Commissioners at 814-765-2642x5051 and tell them we want them to immediately end their contract with ICE and GEO Group and an immediate release of detainees who are sick and on hunger strike. They need their freedom to access proper medical care.

Resources:

  • Read about the Maryland Warehouse win. 

  • Learn:  Make Your Plan for May Day. On May 1, 2026, workers, students, and families rally, march, and take action across the country to demand a nation that puts workers over billionaires, with many refusing business as usual through No School. No Work. No Shopping.  Together, we will say: No ICE. No war. No private army serving unchecked federal power. Now is the time to make your plan!   

  1. Find a May Day event near you 

  2. What plans do you need to make with your boss or family to be available to participate? 

  3. What do you need to prepare or buy ahead of time to not shop on May 1st?

Join:

Watch/Listen: 

 Together, we practice the world we long for. Together, we win.

4.14.26 Action Center Update