The Fairfax BA Alliance participated in the September 8, 2026 Braver Angels National Zoom Call on guidance for holding a Common Ground Workshop (CGW) and Constituent Conversation (CC) under the initiative of the BA Citizen Commission on Immigration: Citizens Commission on Immigration - Braver Angels. The meeting recording will be available on the National association website and includes several highlights and tips:
Step-by-step guides for both the CGW and CC elements and how they’re ideally connected together. As one example, the same group of both CGW participants/observers (maybe two dozen in all) would be those invited to the CC.
Tips for navigating the BA resources; both online materials and key contacts who can share their personal networking resources both within BA and with other Congress-adjacent “back door” contacts
Working with Congressional representatives and their staffs, particularly regarding media relations, ensuring “no ambush”, and seeking to build longer-term relationships
The National BA objective is to publish a report to the nation in May 2027. Alliances are encouraged to conduct the CGW/CC initiative in the next few months (recognizing that some congresspersons may value tent-broadening events before the election, others more so afterwards).
Roughly a dozen attendees, including Fairfax Alliance leaders, attended the meeting in person and when the national conversation moved to Q&A chose to leave the meeting and focus on in-person reactions and thoughts on next steps for the Alliance. Several themes emerged:
An interest in more localized connections with our elected officials on community-level issues rather than the formal National initiative focus on national congressional leaders. Even regarding immigration, it may be more interesting to connect with local officials/candidates on community-level challenges (e.g., housing/jobs resources, local law enforcement challenges).
A concern that the National initiative may be helpful in documenting the common ground approach to Values and Concerns. But Solutions developed and communicated through the half-day CGW process would (by definition) be so high-level as to perhaps cause as many inadvertent adverse consequences as they would desired outcomes (two of our in-person attendees were immigration lawyers who could recognize some implementation challenges). This concern highlights a continuing tension in Braver Angels between celebrating the recognition that some common ground exists versus driving toward some level of compromise-based consensus on a solution (which is parallel to the tension between talking about an issue and doing something about it).
A suggestion that since the DC-area Alliances have already held a number of forums on the immigration topic since the 2024 convention launching the Commission. We might offer a summary of our observations from those events as a part of the supporting story for the national report on immigration.
Next steps include identifying target topics and candidate officials. Flock cameras and data centers were two topics that resurfaced (and may further help address common ground development beyond the typical red/blue poles).