By John-Michael Torres. Originally published in The Monitor / MyRGV.com on May 16, 2022

I was 10 years old when my family packed our whole life into our van and left northern California for South Texas. We had enough saved to get us to Texas and the new opportunities it offered, but little else. When we got here, we encountered what I now know is a Texas tradition: new neighbors who welcomed us with a helping hand. If you can believe it, a man let us stay in his unoccupied trailer rent-free until we got back on our feet.

Texans care for our neighbors, look out for each other, and believe in respecting and embracing people with the courage to move here for a better life. As President Biden takes steps to end Trump-era restrictions on asylum, a slew of state politicians are trying to get us pointing fingers at asylum seekers and new immigrants. Instead, we must recommit to Texas’s welcoming tradition by extending a hand.

When asylum-seeking families and other new immigrants began arriving to our doorstep in large numbers eight years ago, South Texans rose to the occasion. In those early days and since, thousands of our neighbors of all races and backgrounds have offered a hand. Together, we have served meals at humanitarian shelters, donated diapers and socks, and given immigrant families rides to the bus station and airport. What became the HumanitarianRespiteCenter started with women filling their trunks with supplies and delivering them to immigrants stranded at the McAllen bus station.

There is nothing special about those of us volunteering to welcome asylum seekers. Most of us are doing what our parents taught us to do — work hard and treat each other right. As individuals, we are just doing our part. But together, we have moved mountains for the tens of thousands of men, women and children who have arrived at our doorstep in need of safety.

Continue reading “End Asylum Bans, Not Our Welcoming Tradition” on MyRGV.com