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Texas has rapidly become ground zero in the fight for immigrant justice as well as the fight for our democracy. Since April 2022, Texas Governor Abbott has bussed over 105,000 migrants from the border to northern cities such as Chicago, New York, and Washington D.C. – harkening back to the ugly history of segregationists bussing Black families from the South 60 years ago. Texas also has been attempting to usurp federal authority by criminalizing migrants en masse through Operation Lone Star; and passing a trio of anti-immigrant laws in December, including one (SB 4) that would allow Texas police to arrest and detain anyone suspected of entering the U.S. without authorization and would make crossing the border without authorization a state crime.
The standoff at Eagle Pass, where Texas has deployed the state’s National Guard to block U.S. Border Patrol from accessing a section of the border, is emblematic of the looming constitutional crisis. As the Migration Policy Institute points out, “No governor appears to have deployed the state National Guard against federal authorities since 1957, when Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus sought to block nine Black teenagers from entering the all-White Little Rock Central High School.” In February, the state’s Attorney General began targeting non-profit and humanitarian organizations – suing a faith-based nonprofit organization that provides shelter to newly arriving migrants in El Paso.
What’s happening in Texas to immigrant families and communities should alarm anyone who cares about the fate of our democracy. It’s not surprising that the far right is exploiting anti-immigrant sentiment and fears and using the dangerous “invasion” rhetoric to justify unconstitutional enforcement by the state and increasing threats of violence by white supremacists. What many may not realize is that Texas’ mass criminalization of migrants and narrative about the border pose a deeper existential threat to our democracy and fit the authoritarian playbook of sowing chaos and distrust in our democratic norms, institutions, and principles.
Please join our partners at The Four Freedoms Fund for a funder briefing on what’s happening in Texas, what’s at stake, and how advocates are fighting back, turning the tide, and defending our democracy.
speakers
- Carolina Canizales, Senior Texas Campaign Strategist, Immigrant Legal Resource Center
- Tania Chavez Camacho, Executive Director, La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE)
- Roberto Lopez, Senior Advocacy Manager, Beyond Borders program, Texas Civil Rights Project
MODERATOR
- Rose Cahn, Program Officer, Human Rights, Heising-Simons Foundation
cosponsors
- AAPI Civic Engagement Fund
- The Four Freedoms Fund
- Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees
- Heising-Simons Foundation
- Movement Voter Project
- Rural Democracy Initiative
- Texas Future Project
- Valiente Fund
- Way to Rise
registration
Please visit this link to register.
Photo provided by the Four Freedoms Fund