The Texas legislature kicked off on Tuesday, and DREAMers made their presences known right away as a Texas Tribune reporter live-blogged their press conference:
12:37, Julian Aguilar, reporting: “We are not going away.” That was the message delivered to Texas lawmakers this morning by supporters of the DREAM Act, the legislation that would have granted undocumented immigrant children brought to the country by their parents a path to legal residency status.
The legislation was federal and died in the U.S. Senate, but that didn’t stop a handful of Texas students from gathering at the Capitol’s west steps to denounce proposed legislation filed by several Republicans, including HB 22. The legislation was one of several immigration bills filed in November by Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, and would require public school districts to report the residency status of their students.
“We will remember who supports us and who is against us,” said Adrian Reyna, a “dreamer” and sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin brought to the U.S. in 2003 when he was 11 years old. “We have set ourselves on the task to inform the public of what these laws mean.”
They also got a hit on KUT. Listen here.
Be sure to check out ULI’s blog, Dreamers Without Borders.
For a run-down of proposed Texas anti-immigrant legislation, click here.
To register for lobby day on January 25th in Austin, click here.
Governor Perry, who told the house of representatives that abolishing sanctuary cities is a priority (not the 27 BILLION dollar budget shortfall), should listen up. We’re not going to take this lying down…
Related articles
- Texas Sheriffs Reject Arizona-Style Immigration Law (immigration.change.org)
- Jeff Biggers: As Senate Tables DREAM Act, Endangered Hunger Strikers Vow to Keep Pushing for Dream (huffingtonpost.com)
- Students to Senate: Pass DREAM Act for Undocumented Immigrants (time.com)
- Mysa.com: What’s in the DREAM Act? (mysanantonio.com)
