Hundreds of people marched through downtown Dallas on Sunday to protest Senate Bill 4, the new immigration law that allows state officials to arrest migrants or people suspected of entering the country illegally.
The Dallas Morning News reported that dozens of North Texas-based organizations joined to protest SB4, which was supposed to go into effect this month but is not currently being enforced. The law has been bounced between the Supreme Court and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The bill allows state and local police officers to arrest people they believe are in the country illegally and also allows judges to deport them to Mexico without the country’s consent.
The law has been criticized for allowing racial profiling of certain groups, particularly Latinos
“It gives police a free hand in discriminating against anybody they think is undocumented,” Xavier Velasquez, president of La Frontera Nos Cruzó, said. He also said the bill is a “huge attack on the community.”
Along La Frontera Nos Cruzó, there were more than a dozen social justice and advocacy groups protesting against the bill, including the Dallas Brown Berets, North Texas LULAC, the Dallas Anti-War Committee and Party for Socialism and Liberation of Dallas-Fort Worth.
At the protest, many people spoke about migrant’s rights and the harm that the bill could do to Texas families.
There were other organizations protesting for the bill too. Niveen Abdelwahed, member of the Palestinian Youth Movement in Dallas, said both movements are interconnected at a “deep level.”
“We know that at the core of it, it’s all tied together and imperialism and settler colonialism is at the root of all of these issues, so seeing something like Senate Bill 4 being passed and knowing that our tax dollars go toward racist profiling — we’re no strangers to that as Palestinians,” she said.
Protesters hope the march will make officials hear their voices and put an end to SB4.
“We’re all immigrants, we all came from across the pond or across this border and we built this country on hopes and dreams,” said Karla Lopez, a protester.
