February 5th, 2024
Brownsville, TX -- When then-candidate Joe Biden was on the campaign trail, he promised a better tomorrow for immigration policy. He promised to not build another foot of border wall. He broke that promise after being elected in July, 2021, and broke that promise again with current border wall construction, waiving 26 laws he didn’t have to waive, in order to get his Biden Border Wall fast-tracked. And now, at President Biden’s behest, congress is presenting a supplemental funding package that will not only fund ongoing wars, but demands immigration trade-offs that seek to shut down humanitarian asylum, fund more prisons and police for undocu-communities and people on the move, (with over $20 billion allocated for border militarization alone), all to a shocking $118 billion dollars billed to taxpayers.
Michelle Serrano, Co-Director of Voices Unidas states:
“It’s not just the cost of this package that shocks the sensibilities of most, if not all Americans, it's that we have real needs everywhere, and here at the border. It’s that Texas ranks 7th in the United States for the high cost of groceries. It’s that housing costs remain untenable, with community members regularly speaking out at the county level that they or a loved one has lost their home. It’s that as local, state and federal governments give tax breaks to billionaires and leave low-income, immigrant, and mixed-status families to subsidize their industries, these same communities struggle to find solutions for basic infrastructure needs like running water, sewage and electricity.”
“It’s that as we contend with the real-life realities of living on the border, we also meet the moment by addressing humanitarian needs at the ports-of-entry with love and compassion, with systems of support that ensure a good journey for people on the move. Despite this, our public servants turn their noses up to the hospitality of southern border communities, ignore our real-life experiences and disregard sensible and informed voices of leadership in the Rio Grande Valley in exchange for anti-immigrant, anti-community law-making that destroys our natural resources, undermines community trust, and dismantles long-term immigration reform endeavors that seek to meaningfully address the migration of people.”
We know that our country has the abundance to support all Americans and newcomers alike, but are dismayed at the continued broken promises of building a better tomorrow in exchange for fear-based, white supremacist narratives that treat immigrants with suspicion and resentment today. We know that this supplemental funding package will predominantly harm Latine, Black and Indigenous communities across the country while giving platform to the vitriolic rhetoric of bad faith actors in search of a fight. We demand better solutions than stop-gap funding trade-offs that threaten to harm millions. We call on elected leaders to match the energy of the communities like ours. Welcome people with dignity! No funds for hate!
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Voces Unidas RGV is a Rio Grande Valley nonprofit organization with a mission to tell honest stories that inspire deep connection to communities and the land, with a vision of a more peaceful, liberated future where communities are more intimately integrated, where the natural & built environment are more harmoniously and sustainably interconnected, and where people practice living in service of care for each other, the land, and all beings.