Some Hispanic residents of Houston favor President Donald Trump’s administration’s increased immigration enforcement.
According to Javier Loya, a minority owner of the Houston Texans NFL team, he supports current efforts to arrest Americans who might be in the country illegally because they are intended to target criminal activities.
According to Loya, by lowering crime, safer communities may be established where businesses can prosper. In Houston, where our economy is reliant on everything from tiny, family-run enterprises to multinational corporations, it is particularly crucial. However, it’s crucial to ensure that these rules don’t inadvertently cause problems for sectors of the economy that depend on the work of immigrants.
Several public politicians in the Houston region have voiced their opposition to Trump’s immigration policy and executive orders. Thousands of people from the Houston region attended a demonstration organized by two civil rights advocacy groups on Sunday, when demonstrations were staged in towns throughout Texas. Many of them were dressed in the colors of the Mexican flag.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched targeted operations around Texas a week prior, resulting in the detention of scores of people.
In addition to backing those enforcement initiatives, Loya stated that he supports legal routes to U.S. residency and that he has profited from visa programs for his staff.
Particularly recently, political conservatives like tech sector insiders and Trump administration associate Elon Musk, a business tycoon, have been debating H-1B visas. The American Immigration Council claims that H-1B visas are a short-term solution used by employers to request highly qualified foreign workers for specialized jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent.
Bienvenido Empresarios, a group of business leaders and executives in the Hispanic community, was founded and is led by Abraham Enriquez. Additionally, Enriquez formerly served in the Republican National Hispanic Assembly. Some members of the Hispanic community have self-deported, he claimed.
“I hope we can work towards that,” he remarked, referring to the strong people of our community who have been waiting for years for anything from our government. The mainstream media is making people feel like they’re the next victim, therefore they’re self-destructing. Like their house is about to be raided.
Loya, an advisor for Bienvenido Empresarios, and Enriquez both gave Trump their endorsements at a Houston event ahead of the November 2024 election.
As of 2021, around 34% of all foreign-born residents in the Houston area were from Mexico, meaning that 1 in 4 Houstonians were born outside of the United States, according to the Greater Houston Partnership.
ICE has posted on social media that at least four immigration-related arrests have occurred in the Houston region since Trump was sworn in for a second term in the White House on January 20. ICE reports that the arrests have been made for a variety of reasons, including possession of a prohibited narcotic, serious assault, and suspected terrorism. In the final two weeks of January, almost 7,000 people were detained nationwide, according to the New York Times.
