SAN ANTONIO — Protesters from more than a dozen local and national organizations descended on a border security expo Wednesday evening with calls for the city to stop hosting the event in its convention center.
More than 60 people from RAICES, the Southwest Workers Union, Poor People’s Campaign, and other groups gathered Wednesday afternoon outside the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center as conference attendees, including government employees such as Border Patrol workers, left the event. Two people, each shut in cages on the sidewalk, watched as fellow protesters yelled at attendees as they left the building.
The group chanted, and some held signs that called for immigrant families apprehended at the border not to be separated. In May 2018, the Trump administration ordered all adults who illegally crossed the border to be referred for prosecution, including parents who arrived with children. As a result, families were broken up, and several thousand children were transferred to Health and Human Services. The order was rescinded in late June.
Protest and soon a march from the convention center to the Alamo, where the Border Security Expo is having its evening event memorializing fallen agents. Protest led by RAICES and many other groups pic.twitter.com/WLLEbMICxO
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) March 11, 2020
“We are here today in a direct action against the Border Patrol and any other form of entity that is terrorizing our community,” Diana Lopez of the Southwest Workers Union said during a press conference outside the convention center. “What’s happening right now indoors is the latest of technology, weapons, devices that are used to disturb not only our companeros struggling to cross the border for a better life, but also any form of wildlife, wild inhabitants that is natural to them.”
The groups urged the city not to host the event again. The expo features government and private sector speakers, as well as a large expo where businesses can show their technology or products to interested government officials. In its 14th year, the event had 1,100 attendees, slightly down from last year’s 1,200 guests. Lopez also called on all U.S. cities to refuse to host it next winter.
From the protest today outside the convention center and Alamo in San Antonio. @RAICESTEXAS and other orgs called for an end to the @border_security expo. The expo is in its 14th yr and has 1100 attendees this yr, including DHS, Border Patrol, CBP employees pic.twitter.com/6mBW8QtpeO
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) March 11, 2020
“We’re asking that San Antonio not host not support not participate in any type of work that is going to continue to terrorize our communities,” Lopez said. “We didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us. That’s why we’re here as indigenous folks kind of reclaiming our land and saying, ‘No cages on stolen land. No cages in our community.'”
The protesters then marched about half a mile to the Alamo, where the expo holds and the nonprofit Border Patrol Foundation, hold an annual evening event on the first night of the conference memorializing fallen border agents. As conference attendees walked into the Alamo for the event, the group continued chanting and was blocked by police from taking up a large portion of the sidewalk directly across the street.
The protesters have arrived at the Alamo and are chanting as Border Security Expo walk onto the Alamo property for the event tonight pic.twitter.com/QKh9lm3Vxd
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) March 11, 2020
