Eagle Pass, TX – Grassroots organizers from Legalization for All Network affiliates in California, Texas and Minnesota are on their way to the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas to learn from and support local organizers doing the work to feed, house and support immigrants and refugees in this town on the U.S./Mexico border.

Tensions have risen in Eagle Pass as Governor Greg Abott of Texas has continued to heavily militarize the border there, with Texas National Guard troops continuing to occupy Shelby Park along the Rio Grande River in defiance of federal court rulings and community demands that they leave.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has also gone to Eagle Pass to do anti-immigrant photo-op stunts. The Texas National Guard’s occupation of this area led directly to the deaths of a mother and her two daughters in the river in January, by blocking anyone from trying to save them from drowning. The razor buoys that Governor Abbott put in the Rio Grande before that have also caused many deaths and injuries.

White supremacists have been emboldened and have been mobilizing to Eagle Pass supposedly to patrol the normally quiet border town to try to capitalize on this moment for their own racist agenda.

Adding to Texas’s wave of racist anti-immigrant hysteria, on February 20 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a lawsuit to try to shut down Annunciation House, a Catholic volunteer organization that offers hospitality to immigrants and refugees. Paxton ridiculously claims that the organization is “smuggling and harboring” immigrants. This is on top of the Texas legislature passing the draconian anti-immigrant bill SB 4 which is slated to go into effect in March.

Gabriel Quiroz Jr. of Centro CSO in Boyle Heights Los Angeles ,California, who will be participating in the Legalization for All Network delegation to Eagle Pass said, “I’m looking forward to getting to work and helping the groups and organizations on the ground in any way we can, in trying times like this solidarity is very important.”

Another participant in the upcoming border delegation, Brad Sigal of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, said, “The only ‘crisis’ at the border is the human rights catastrophe that Governor Abbott and anti-immigrant politicians like him are creating with their racist attacks. No human being is illegal.”

The Legalization for All Network delegation is being hosted by Eagle Pass community members who are ignored by Texas Governor Abbott and Republican congresspeople when they swoop into Eagle Pass to grandstand.

Delegation members plan to learn about and document the realities on the ground for immigrants and asylum seekers as well as for residents of this border town who live under constant surveillance and occupation by federal immigration enforcement agencies, and now Texas National Guard troops. They also plan to share what they learn to counter the propaganda pumped out by anti-immigrant politicians like Donald Trump and Greg Abbott.

#EaglePassTX #ImmigrantRights #USMexicoBorder #L4A #MIRAC #CentroCSO