Immigrants protest to prove their worth
Restaurant closures, marches part of day’s show of support
The call to shutter restaurants and shops temporarily is heard in Texas and across the country as “A Day Without Immigrants” protests spread in repsonse to raids that led to the arrest of 700 people.
The call for immigrants and their supporters to stay home from work or school, close their businesses and abstain from shopping was broadcast across social media, shuttering restaurants from Houston to Washington, D.C., Thursday as hundreds of protesters marched across the country.
Billed as a “day without immigrants,” the protests spread in true grass-roots fashion without any formal organizers.
More than 100 restaurants across the nation, including the popular Torchy’s Tacos and Tacos A Go-Go in Texas closed in support, and many employees stayed home from work. Students skipped school, in one case leaving a KIPP charter elementary school in Austin practically empty. Hundreds of people marched to the state Capitol in Austin.
The rallies come a week after highly-publicized immigration raids across the country, including in Austin and San Antonio, that led to the arrest of nearly 700 people, the largest such sweep in about two years. It escalated tension among immigrants already rattled after a series of executive actions that have fueled fear in their communities.
A young immigrant with temporary protection from deportation was detained in Seattle. A victim of
domestic violence was arrested when she went to an El Paso court house seeking a protective order against her alleged abuser.
“There is most definitely anxiety,” said Cesar Espinosa, executive director of the advocacy group FIEL Houston. “We have been inundated with calls.”
The national day of protest, intended to show what the nation could face without its immigrant workers, came as some House Democrats met with the acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director about the impact of the executive actions.
In a statement after the meeting, U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard of California said every person here illegally is now at risk of deportation, a shift from the government’s previous strategy to focus mainly on immigrants who have committed serious crimes.
Chief responds
The alarm has been palpable with rumors about immigration agents conducting raids spreading furiously across social media. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo even took to Twitter to denounce the idea that federal agents are at Fiesta Mart grocery stores. And FIEL Houston announced that it would create a network of volunteers to investigate tips that immigration authorities are operating in certain areas.
“We are trying to figure out how we can work through all of these situations instead of just reacting and freaking out,” said Areli Tamayo, president of the Youth Empowerment Alliance for students here illegally at the University of Houston.
In a sense, Thursday’s effort provided such a boost to battered psyches. Though Tamayo couldn’t skip school because she had two exams, and her parents, a house cleaner and laborer, still went to work, she said they are participating in other ways.
“What we’re doing is not purchasing anything. We’re trying to stay out of everything besides school and work,” she said. “Everyone is trying to do something to contribute.”
‘Respect to my workers’
In Houston, Torchy’s Tacos and Tacos A Go-Go posted on social media that they closed to allow their staff to participate in the strike.
“This is pretty awesome,” said Jennifer Sarkisian, who found Torchy’s on Shepherd Drive closed at lunch. “Immigrants come to our country to play an important role and we take the work they do for granted.”
Enrique Bravo, owner of the Pollo Bravo restaurant chain, said he permitted employees to skip work. His restaurant on Richmond Avenue closed for the day, though four others remained open with fewer staff. Bravo, an immigrant from Mexico who has lived here for two decades, said his decision was based on “respect to my workers.”
In Austin, the KIPP charter school network posted a photo on Twitter of a nearly empty elementary school, calling it a “powerful statement.”
“We’ve seen heavy absences from our students, across the board,” said Hector Leiva Jr., a spokesman for the schools. “We knew that lots of parents and families were interested in supporting this. We support them.”
He said KIPP schools are more than 90 percent Hispanic.
Protesters march
Throughout the morning, protesters marched from Austin City Hall toward the state Capitol, rallying against increased immigration enforcement. Police officers shut down half of Congress Avenue while participants waved signs reading “Immigrants Make America Great” and “Stop the deportations. Stop the separations.”
An evening protest was planned in Houston at Guadalupe Plaza in the East End.
Marching with his wife, Francisco Montejano said it was personal. He came here from Mexico when he was 12 and later became a citizen.
His father was already here, having arrived in the 1940s through the Bracero Program allowing Mexican men to work on short agricultural contracts.
“The commonality of all of our stories is we came here in search of a better life,” Montejano said.
About 13 percent of the U.S. population, more than 40 million people, are foreign born, according to census data.
In Houston, about one out of every four residents was born abroad.
Immigrants — about half of whom are here illegally — make up about one-fifth of Texas’ workforce, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Though it’s difficult to know exactly how much they contribute to the economy, a 2006 analysis by the Texas comptroller’s office estimated that immigrants here illegally contributed $17.7 billion to the state’s economic output.
Nationally, an analysis in November by the National Bureau of Economic Research found immigrants here illegally contribute 3 percent to America’s GDP.
Tamayo, of the University of Houston, said she gives hundreds of dollars to her parents every month thanks to her tutoring job. But she would lose that if President Donald Trump takes away her temporary work permit for young immigrants, something he has said he may do.
“There’s a lot of things crashing down at the same time,” she said.