Houston DSA is fighting back for immigrant rights! At our chapter convention, Houston DSA created an Immigrant Justice Campaign and joined the Houston Leads coalition to fight for our immigrant community.
Sign petition – We are building a campaign demanding that The City of Houston should be fighting to protect Houstonians from ICE, not working with ICE! We are gathering support from Houstonians to force city council to act. Sign our petition!
Attend upcoming Campaign meetings!
Background
Trump’s attacks on immigrants
Trump has attacked asylum, birthright citizenship, Temporary Protected Status, deporting people without due process, targeting students for Palestine Solidarity Activism and more. But attacks on immigrants didn’t start in January.
Abbott’s Attacks on Immigrants
For a decade, Greg Abbott and the Republican legislature have attacked immigrants and tried to force cities and local law enforcement to act as immigration officers.
The state of Texas has passed laws banning “Sanctuary Cities” spent more than 10 Billions dollars militarizing the border with Operation Lone Star, and is pushing this session to force large counties to make sheriff departments enforce immigration laws.
“Houston miracle” is that we have lots of immigrants
Houston’s position as an economic center is tied to being an international city full of immigrants. Houston’s population is nearly 30% foreign born, double the national rate of 14%. Half of the children living in Houston have at least one immigrant parent. Half of the workers in Houston’s construction industry are foreign born and 30% are undocumented.
Whitmire says HPD won’t do ICE enforcement
Mayor Whitmire has spoken with press and at city council and claimed that Houston is “not the Immigration department.” and that “HPD has not participated in federal efforts”
“We do not deal with immigration,” Whitmire said in January. “We’re not the Immigration Department. We’re not ICE. We run the city of Houston, we deal with city issues.”
HPD is doing ICE enforcement
It has become clear that this isn’t true, and the HPD has been ordered to use an ICE database and to call ICE to pick up residents, including for traffic violations and for people reporting crime.
Houston Courts are sharing date with ICE
The city of Houston also handed over data on citations for driving without a license to the Department of Justice, making Houston residents targets for ICE enforcement.