Despite all our efforts, Texas legislators recently passed some of the harshest anti-immigrant legislation in recent history (Lawsuits challenging these bills are pending.)
The only real solution for the humanitarian crisis at the border—and for labor shortages in our country with its aging population and declining birth rate—is to elect legislators who will enact comprehensive, humane immigration reform.
Your most powerful tool for advocacy is YOUR VOTE.
In Texas, February 5th will be the last day to register to vote in the March 5th primary, so plan now. Texans, you can check your voter registration status here. Start a new voter registration application or update your information here.
If you are a Texas resident planning to vote by mail, you must fill out and mail a vote-by-mail application to your county’s Early Voting Clerk. Call your local or county election office and request that an application to vote by mail be sent to you, or download the application here (PDF).
Bexar County residents, view—and share—voting info compiled by the Advocacy Committee at http://tiny.cc/BexarCountyVotingInfo.
Start planning NOW!
The world’s problems feel too big to solve. So why bother?
Why continue to call and email legislators if we don’t see results? Here’s an anonymous reader’s answer:
“Although I wouldn’t describe myself as an activist, I have always paid attention to world events, volunteered, voted without fail in every election, made regular calls to my representatives, and donated money when I could.
In that time, it has felt as though the world has just gotten worse and worse. I was talking to my therapist….She reminded me that the architects and craftspeople who built cathedrals knew that not even their children’s children would see them completed….
That made a lightbulb go off—because I’m a writer. Writing is something I do because it brings me pleasure….The point is the daily practice of showing up to the blank page and finding my purpose in putting the words on paper, no matter what happens to those words after I write them.
It made me realize that I need to stop looking at my political activism as a means to an end, but as a practice that has meaning in and of itself, whether it advances progress or not. Volunteering, voting, reading, speaking, calling, and donating: I can always find meaning in the doing of this activism on days like today.
This realization gave me the inspiration and ability to keep going.”
Join us in making advocacy a practice. There is meaning in speaking out for the most vulnerable among us.
