By Naomi Rees
White House border czar Tom Homan will be the featured speaker at a UTEP event Thursday, Dec. 4, presented by the campus chapter of Turning Point USA. The University of Texas at El Paso is one of the nation’s largest Hispanic-serving research colleges and the largest university on the border. Welcoming a man who champions wholesale deportation comes as a slap in the face to many students.
Naomi Rees
Homan is the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and currently “is in charge of all deportation of illegal aliens,” as stated by President Donald Trump. This includes masked ICE raids and mass deportations with little regard to due process.
Under Homan’s direction as border czar (which the White House has called “legendary,”) ICE has detained legal immigrants, people holding green cards and valid visas. According to publicly available data, almost three-fourths of ICE detainees have no criminal conviction.
People in ICE detention facilities have reported violence, lack of food, overcrowding, little to no privacy, extreme indoor temperatures, and inadequate access to medical and legal services.
In September, the Supreme Court ruled that ICE can legally detain people based on suspicion of having immigrated illegally, relying on factors such as “speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent, and apparent race or ethnicity.” This paves the way for racial profiling and racial discrimination at the national level.
A number of students at UTEP are Mexican citizens who cross the border daily. (I have a friend who wakes up at 4:30 am to cross the bridge in time for class). Under Homan’s leadership, our international students have valid reason to fear ICE.
Several students, myself included, are organizing a peaceful protest at Homan’s speech. We want to show support for humane policy that respects the dignity of all people, regardless of their immigration status. We will adhere strictly to principles of non-violence.
We are not minimizing the need for border security. It is important for a nation to control its borders. However, the tactics ICE employs are fomenting terror. Dragging women and children from suburban homes and Honda Civics does not deter violent criminals. It will not stop the flow of drugs to Americans willing to pay for them. It is targeting the vulnerable.
If Homan and ICE want to send a message, they are succeeding. The message is that we are not safe. ICE has legal power to tear you away from your family, from your job, from your home. ICE can hold you in terrible conditions. Even if you did everything right, they can get you. This is the message I am getting from Homan’s ICE.
Bypassing the blatant authoritarian and inhumane issues, violent arrest and detention of non-criminals do not help the people. It spreads fear. Political views are irrelevant when people’s rights are being violated. How can we choose to be silent when our government is arresting people en masse with only a veneer of legality?
We at UTEP want to show Homan and whoever is watching that El Paso is not governed by fear and exclusion. We do not condone Tom Homan’s actions. We are a city seeking peace and justice for everyone, to welcome people as human beings, not demanding papers as a prerequisite to dignity.
I don’t know what the turnout will be Thursday, but we can’t be silent. Even if it’s only a handful of us holding signs in the back of a polemic diatribe, we aim to be a voice against fear, a voice in the midst of chaos affirming that all people deserve to be treated with dignity. We hope that one day that’s not a political statement.
Event details
The presentation by border czar Tom Homan will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4, at Undergraduate Learning Center Room 106 on the UTEP campus. Registration is required.
A group of UTEP students is organizing a protest at 6 p.m. that day at Leech Grove on campus, with plans to go to the presentation at 6:50 p.m.
Naomi Rees is a native of Austin, Texas, currently in her fourth year as an undergraduate student at UTEP studying chemistry and Spanish literature.
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