Legislative Work
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NISGUA works on a variety of legislative and policy issues, such as maintaining a ban on U.S. military aid to Guatemala, closing the School of the Americas/WHISC, declassifying U.S. government documents, and maintaining a United Nations presence in Guatemala. Activists, local committees, Sponsoring Communities, and returned accompaniers play a vital role in NISGUA's advocacy efforts by meeting with, writing, and calling their members of Congress.

The key to working with your members of Congress is to remember that they depend on votes from your district and state to remain in office. They are in office to represent your views, which means that members of Congress do pay attention to their constituents, and you can have an impact. In fact, congressional offices count the letters they receive and meetings they have in favor and against various issues, and your actions can have a direct effect on the outcome.

It's also important to keep in mind that Guatemala is not a front and center issue for most members of Congress. Because we work on a topic that doesn't always get a lot of public attention, the voices of a few constituents can make a BIG difference in how your representative or senators vote or take action on Guatemala. Because they don't hear from many people on this subject, the voices they do hear carry greater weight.

If you belong to a nongovernmental, religious, grassroots, or community organization, you can build a personal connection between your organization and your congressional offices on a set of issues that can significantly advance our work on U.S. policy in Guatemala.

Keep in mind that there are a number of ways, with varying levels of militancy, to express your position on a subject to your representative and senators. These include:

Sending letters/emails/postcards
Making phone calls
Conducting congressional visits
Hounding (unrelenting outreach)
Leading Protests and Demonstrations
Holding Office Sit-ins

The key to successful congressional pressure campaigns are: building mobilizing capacity, escalation of pressure, and diversity of tactics. Escalation over time is important. If you start off with the highest level of militancy, (usually a more controversial approach), such as an office take over, you would be hard pressed to increase your level of militancy in the future while at the same time expanding your base.

It is very possible, however, to climb the pressure ladder quickly. There's no rule that all six tactics need to be followed, one after the other, in any particular order. These tactics can be blended, methods can be skipped, order can varied. The most important consideration is that campaigns employ more than one type of tactic in a campaign.