EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Dozens of community organizations, faith leaders and advocates filled San Jacinto Plaza in Downtown El Paso for the “Reclaiming Our Dignity and Rights: Community Mobilization” march on Saturday, May 3.
According to the news release by the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR), the march “marks the kickoff of the Second Journeys of Resistance, a statewide initiative to reclaim the dignity and rights of marginalized communities across Texas.”
The Border Network for Human Rights organized the event. The organization bills itself as one of the leading human rights advocacy and immigration reform organizations in the country with over 7,000 members in West Texas and Southern New Mexico.
“At a time of growing militarization of border communities, expanding poverty, attacks on public education, health care, and housing, and the ongoing criminalization and dehumanization of immigrants, Black, Brown, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, disabled, and working-class communities, El Paso will rise to declare: We Are America,” BNHR said in a news release.
The march began at the corner of Father Rham and El Paso Street and ended at San Jacinto Plaza with a rally, according to the BNHR.
“This mobilization is a public affirmation that, as border militarization expands under the false guise of security, and as families continue to be torn apart, our communities will stand united to proclaim a bold truth: We All Are America,” Fernando García, executive director of BNHR, said.
According to the BNHR, the march is in collaboration with Border Workers United, Abara, Border Agricultural Workers Project, Texas Rising El Paso, La Mujer Obrera/Familias Unidas del Chamizal, Prince of Peace Christian Fellowship, Spirit of the Lord Ministries, El Paso Teachers Association, Central Labor Union of El Paso, SEIU, and Common Defense-Latine Veterans Caucus.
“We will lift up the histories that define us, name the injustices that continue to wound us, and reclaim the dignity and rights that belong to every member of our communities,” García said.
KTSM received the following statement from El Paso County Republican Chairman Michael Aboud:
“This is just another gathering of people who are being paid to pretend to protect. Was it dignified to break another country’s law when they cut the fence and crawled through a little hole, or maybe they jumped over it? But either way, they scampered away like a thief in the night to hide. Were they being dignified when they helped smuggle someone else’s child into our country and lied about who the child belonged to? Is it dignified to have another country’s government house you because you broke that country’s laws? What are these people really proposing of these gatherings?”
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