Bayou Blue Dems at Democracy Cafe: Immigration

Source: https://bayoubluedems.com/

It’s been a minute since the last Democracy Cafe in March, but I really genuinely enjoy these meetings. The idea is simple; cover a topic and its relevance to Houston. Last Saturday’s was “Immigration” and provided a couple of hours of reflection and spirited discussion. 

People start arriving at ten and meet and mingle and then break up into groups of four for two sessions. Each session is about half an hour long that goes by far too quickly. A facilitator is chosen who remains in place, then the other three people find other places to light. This keeps perspectives fresh and all of us motivated to learn.

I was a facilitator and couldn’t ask for more vibrant cohorts. The first break-out session was centered the question “How do immigrants (legal, illegal) impact Houston specifically?

Recognizing that Houston is 24% immigrant population means that the impact is immense. Consider that one in four people are non-native across a broad section of careers and backgrounds. We agreed that this being the case, Immigrants, through helping bringing such rich diversity to the community, foster diversity, and in some cases, we see different cultures come together and how some others may be more insular. Everyone in this session agreed that exposure to immigrants enriched their lives and deepened their sense of empathy. A more quantifiable impact is found in the economic and infrastructure sectors, where it is easy to see the contributions immigrants make in terms of helping build and grow the city. This is across the full spectrum of employment; we often think of the Latin American migrants who toil in the fields as farm workers or in the service industry, but we neglect their presence and expertise in the sciences, in medicine, in academia, and IT. 

The removal of immigrants from Houston would be catastrophic and if ICE continues to remove people from our streets and the regime continues to rail against immigrants and push anti-immigrant legislation, then communities like Houston are going to suffer. 

The second break-out session was spurred on by the question, “what should be the guiding principles for immigration policy?” In light of the current regime’s lack of principles and manufacturing chaos and confusion to fuel fear, these principles become very clear-cut. At the very least, we identified the following as principles:

• A sense of fairness in providing a clear path to citizenship or long-term residency.
• Maintaining birthright citizenship and the 14th Amendment.
• Moving away from protectionism and isolationism.

There were discussions about labor and the exploitation of immigrants, but also how organized labor can help combat that. We also recognized that the manipulation of the perceived influx of raging hordes of immigrants requires a course correction, and of course, combatting the systemic racism and xenophobia that lead to exclusionist policies at the legislative level and that immigrants face on a personal level.

We had about a ten minute period to wrap up and it was agreed that the results of these sessions should be moved up the pipelines in the Harris County Democratic Party and the Texas Democratic Party. I’ve discussed how across the state, Democrats in the smaller towns and cities are often marginalized and leery of promoting their events or even identifying as Dems. Consequently, many of those communities operate in silos and many of us in the larger cities have little idea of the problems they confront. My suggestion is that we do push the results of these rather informal “think tank” findings out across the state partly as simply sharing information-gathering, developing strategies, as well as strengthening communities beset with division. I should stress that all are welcome to these proceedings and they are not exclusionary or “for Democrats only.” 

It’s one thing to have get-togethers and discuss topics, it’s another to use these platforms and discussions to help drive conversations at the state level and hopefully, have some policy impacts downstream.

The next Democracy Cafe is on Wednesday, June 11, from 6:15 to 7:45 pm when Minority Leader of the Texas House of Representatives Gene Wu and House District 134  Representative Ann Johnson will be the speakers. This will be a joint event co-hosted with West University Area Democrats. To register, go to https://www.mobilize.us/hcdp/event/752586/.

I can’t stress how many groups there are across Houston and the surrounding area. These different groups (“clubs”) are the grassroots organization that have been flourishing since 2017, at least. They are great access points for people who want to get involved and engaged in local community politics. You will meet some wonderful people, among them, just regular folks who have decided to run for office. As dire as so much of Texas and national politics are, joining with others in coming to terms with these political hellscapes is an ever-more-important way to go. 

Websites:

Bayou Blue Democrats: https://bayoubluedems.com/

West University Area Democrats: https://www.westudems.org/

Harris County Democratic Party: https://www.harrisdemocrats.org/