Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible join elected officials and community organizations in calling on DHS to release the environmental studies behind proposed Washington County ICE detention center and extend public comment period.
I appreciate the effort that went into making it easy for people to respond, but it was super hard to track down the actual DHS call for comments and submission mechanism (just email) for those who have the capacity to submit a distinctive response. I suggest for future do both for highest impact. Thank you!
Thank you for the feedback and for taking the time to participate in the public comment campaign. We genuinely appreciate it.
Just so we can improve for future campaigns, I wanted to clarify something: were you under the impression that people were required to submit the example template response in order to participate?
If so, that is incredibly helpful feedback and a clear sign that we need to improve our messaging, because that is not accurate. People were always encouraged to submit their own original comments directly to DHS, and the overwhelming majority did exactly this.
Our goal throughout this campaign was to maximize impact. One reason we encouraged use of this streamlined submission process was that it creates a verifiable record that a public comment was submitted and makes it impossible for DHS to later claim they never received those comments.
It also allows us to clearly demonstrate that 4,350 people submitted documented, verifiable public comments regarding this proposal. That is a significant statement about the level of public concern in Washington County and beyond, and it is much easier to communicate that level of engagement when submissions are collected through a centralized process rather than being sent individually through separate channels.
It’s also worth noting that the overwhelming majority of comments submitted through the campaign were unique to the individual submitting them rather than identical form letters, which we think made the public record considerably stronger.
That said, making sure people understand that submitting directly to DHS with their own comments was always an option is important, and if our messaging created a different impression, that is valuable feedback that will help us improve future campaigns.
Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts and suggestions.
My experience was partially based on an incorrect assumption that the comment prpcess was being run through the Federal Register. So I anticipated a click through to instructions on accessing and submitting through Federal Register and essentially submitted an untailored comment by accident. (Don't worry, I went back and submitted a tailored one when I figured it out). Some orgs do run parallel comment submissions when a Federal Register document is open (just because not as many people are willing to submit through Federal Reigster) so I initially thought that was what happened. Obviously, when I went to hunt down the Federal Register record there wasn't one. Although there was significant reporting on the comment period even in mainstream media, no one linked to the direct call for comments and it took some poking around to find it. I definitely understand the value of traceability for accountability and convenience for increasing participation. I do think more clarity on the source of the comment call and the mechanism of submission would be helpful. I also wonder about the potential value of diversifying the source of submissions (even when tailored) to avoid possible discreditation on account of being part of an organized drive. All of that said, I greatly appreciate how much work and research went in to making this an effective comment response. No more camps!
At protests it would be good to game specific chants with names as to who to vote out.
The logo is beautiful- striking & unique (pls tell the artist!)
I appreciate the effort that went into making it easy for people to respond, but it was super hard to track down the actual DHS call for comments and submission mechanism (just email) for those who have the capacity to submit a distinctive response. I suggest for future do both for highest impact. Thank you!
Thank you for the feedback and for taking the time to participate in the public comment campaign. We genuinely appreciate it.
Just so we can improve for future campaigns, I wanted to clarify something: were you under the impression that people were required to submit the example template response in order to participate?
If so, that is incredibly helpful feedback and a clear sign that we need to improve our messaging, because that is not accurate. People were always encouraged to submit their own original comments directly to DHS, and the overwhelming majority did exactly this.
Our goal throughout this campaign was to maximize impact. One reason we encouraged use of this streamlined submission process was that it creates a verifiable record that a public comment was submitted and makes it impossible for DHS to later claim they never received those comments.
It also allows us to clearly demonstrate that 4,350 people submitted documented, verifiable public comments regarding this proposal. That is a significant statement about the level of public concern in Washington County and beyond, and it is much easier to communicate that level of engagement when submissions are collected through a centralized process rather than being sent individually through separate channels.
It’s also worth noting that the overwhelming majority of comments submitted through the campaign were unique to the individual submitting them rather than identical form letters, which we think made the public record considerably stronger.
That said, making sure people understand that submitting directly to DHS with their own comments was always an option is important, and if our messaging created a different impression, that is valuable feedback that will help us improve future campaigns.
Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts and suggestions.
My experience was partially based on an incorrect assumption that the comment prpcess was being run through the Federal Register. So I anticipated a click through to instructions on accessing and submitting through Federal Register and essentially submitted an untailored comment by accident. (Don't worry, I went back and submitted a tailored one when I figured it out). Some orgs do run parallel comment submissions when a Federal Register document is open (just because not as many people are willing to submit through Federal Reigster) so I initially thought that was what happened. Obviously, when I went to hunt down the Federal Register record there wasn't one. Although there was significant reporting on the comment period even in mainstream media, no one linked to the direct call for comments and it took some poking around to find it. I definitely understand the value of traceability for accountability and convenience for increasing participation. I do think more clarity on the source of the comment call and the mechanism of submission would be helpful. I also wonder about the potential value of diversifying the source of submissions (even when tailored) to avoid possible discreditation on account of being part of an organized drive. All of that said, I greatly appreciate how much work and research went in to making this an effective comment response. No more camps!