A few dozen supporters of Obama’s amnesty program gathered on Saturday to “take the fight to Ken Paxton’s neighborhood” to protest against federal and state immigration laws.
According to a September 13 Facebook post, the protest outside the home of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was instigated by Texas Organizing Project (TOP), North Texas LULAC, and Texas Resistance Coalition.
Many of the protesters sported TOP t-shirts.
“[Paxton] is choosing to put 800,000 promising young Americans at stake for deportation and we will not sit on the sidelines!” TOP’s event post exclaimed, misidentifying both the citizenship status of people eligible for deportation and the person authorized to set immigration policy.
Most of the fifty or so protesters arrived in McKinney by bus from TOP’s Dallas office location, including several minor children who were presumably there through no fault of their own.
When asked, none of the protesters would say who had paid for the bus.
Chanting “DACA Dreamers have no fear,” the group said it was protesting Paxton’s opposition to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an immigration policy unlawfully instituted by then-President Obama via executive order that protected so-called “Dreamers” – illegal aliens who entered the United States as children – from deportation and allowed them to work in the U.S.
On September 5, the Trump administration initiated an orderly wind down of DACA, in response to a June 29 letter from Paxton and the attorneys general of nine other states.
The protesters also carried signs opposing SB 4 – a reference to Senate Bill 4, Texas’ new anti-sanctuary cities law enacted earlier this year that prevents local entities from directing law enforcement to undermine federal immigration laws.
Agitating outside the homes of public officials, often trampling private property in the process, has become a common tactic of left-wing activists.
TOP’s website bills it as a “membership-based organization that conducts direct action organizing, grassroots lobbying and electoral organizing led by working families in Texas,” with offices in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. TOP says it “promotes social and economic equality for low to moderate income Texans.” The group’s membership dues are $60 a year.
About 30 area residents, who heard about the protest the day before, gathered across from the organized agitators to show support for Paxton and the rule of law.
