The Houston Peace and justice Center is appalled by attacks on and false statements about migrants, colloquially called immigrants.
HPJC stands in solidarity with our migrant friends who contribute so much to US society and who are being so unjustly attacked for coming to the US to make a better life for their families.
Migrants have made our country strong. Other than indigenous Americans, everyone in the US is a migrant or a descendant of migrants. We are a country of migrants – more so than most other countries in the world. We value people who have overcome obstacles – some very difficult ones in many cases – to come to the US to use their talents and skills to work to improve the lives of their families and our communities. We all depend on the work of migrants, and their presence makes our country stronger.
Everyone, regardless of status, has the same fundamental constitutional rights of due process and protection from unlawful discrimination in employment, education, housing and public spaces
Welcoming migrants makes our communities and nation stronger and that we must stand along our migrant neighbors so that they may thrive and continue to add to our economy and culture
Supporting migrants helps to make the American dream more of a reality for our neighbors, communities, and country.
We encourage everyone to stand up publicly in support of migrants and speak out when others try to spread lies, hate, and misinformation about them.
For example, we explicitly reject Donald Trump’s plan to deport 11 million migrants. In contrast, we’d like to look forward to a future in which ICE is abolished and migrants are granted full worker protections and welcomed for their contributions to our society, eliminating their “threat” of undercutting American jobs.