Please Join in on Stopping SB4 (Anti-Sanctuary Cities Bill) Now!

If you can't make it to the legislature today to oppose SB4, the PLEASE call 888-337-3241 to oppose SB4 in Texas. They'll ask for your name, phone number and zip code. Only 2 minutes of your time can make a world of difference.

If you can make it, here are the specifics:

 SB 4 (Anti-Sanctuary Cities bill), Wednesday, 3/15, 10:30 AM, Rm. E2.036
You can read the bill text HERE. 

Also, happy to post Dr. Emilio Zamora's excellent testimony to this blog.

-Angela

Testimony

Emilio Zamora

March 15, 2017

            I join the numerous witnesses that have come before you in opposition to SB 4 and I agree with many of the arguments that you have heard, including the following:

·      The proposed legislation represents an attack on our immigrant communities;

·      It will make our communities unsafe because undocumented victims of crime will be reluctant to report these crimes for fear of being found and deported;

·      It will impair relations—including trade relations—between Mexico and the United States—especially Texas;

·      It violates the spirit if not the letter of the constitution which declares our moral obligation to be fair and just in the treatment of all residents of the United States; and

·      It would authorize local police to function as de facto ICE officers risking the violation of state and federal laws, including racial profiling.

I wish add other reasons that you may not have heard.  Our history has recorded numerous instances of good neighborliness by Mexico that would make a unilateral initiative like SB4 an affront to our southern neighbor and a dismissal of a history of cooperation and reciprocity.  The following are selected cases of Mexican good neighborliness when the United States sought wartime unity in the hemisphere during the war emergency of 1941:

·      Mexico overlooked the loss of one-half of its territory as a result of the U.S.-Mexico war of 1846-48 and led the extraordinary effort to promote the U.S.’s Good Neighbor Policy in Latin America and to  build hemispheric unity on behalf of the United States;

·      Mexico allowed the United States to set up radar installations on the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coasts;

·      Mexico sent well over 500,000 war workers (braceros) to assist the United States during WWII;

·      Mexico allowed 15,000 of its nationals in the United States to serve in the U.S. military;

·      Mexico supplied critical amount of tungsten, copper, rubber and other materials for war production;

·      Mexico deployed Flight Squadron 201 that fought alongside the U.S. military during WWII; and

·      Mexico built Latin American support for the U.S.’s efforts to establish the United Nations in 1945.

How can anyone in their right mind pass a bill that disregards these and so many other instances of cooperation in the history Mexico-U.S. relations, and so egregiously risk appearing ungrateful to our best friend in the hemisphere?