My Recent Visit to the Valley Broke My Heart

Every summer growing up, I’d visit my grandparents in Brownsville, a border town in the Rio Grande Valley. I could drive there from Dallas with my eyes closed, I know it so well. It’s a place that showed me the true meaning of community – people looking out for each other, helping neighbors in need, and believing that everyone deserves a fair shot.

That’s why my recent visit to the Valley broke my heart. This sense of community and safety is being ripped apart at the seams – cynically, violently. The Trump administration’s ICE raids are instilling a fear in folks like I’ve never seen before.

I talked to local teachers, football coaches, small business owners, and families, and I heard the same story over and over: They’re terrified.

Parents are scared to drive their kids to school. Shop owners are afraid of opening their doors. Families are packing up and fleeing in the middle of the night because they’re worried about what will happen to them when the sun comes up.

You see, these raids don’t just affect our undocumented and mixed-status neighbors; they destabilize the entire community. They make it harder for everyone to feel safe.

We have to tackle border security and immigration reform – and we have to do it in a responsible way. But what’s happening now is not that. What’s happening now is a deliberate terrorizing of communities that’s devastating families, leaving children scared and uncertain about their future, and weakening our local economies.

If Donald Trump actually cared about securing the border, he wouldn’t have completely sabotaged the bipartisan immigration bill last year.

If Republicans like Attorney General Ken Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn actually cared about making Texans safer and helping us thrive, they wouldn’t be enabling these ICE raids, which are only hurting our people – often without due process – and our small businesses.

Here’s what I believe: We can protect our borders and do it in a way that’s consistent with our values. We can create an immigration system that’s fair and humane and that recognizes the dignity of every person who calls Texas home.

But this is only possible if we have political leadership in place that’s ready and willing to push for comprehensive immigration reform – and right now, we don’t. Not at all.

There’s a difference between enforcing the law and intimidating our neighbors, and Trump, Paxton, and Cornyn clearly don’t understand that difference. A vote for them is more chaos, cruelty, and misguided immigration policies that have gotten us absolutely nowhere.

We deserve leaders who inspire unity, not fear. Leaders who put forth an inclusive vision of our future. Leaders who fix problems, not run on them for their own personal gain.

I’m in this fight because we deserve better – as Texans and as Americans.

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