As extreme weather dumps on Texas, Abbott dumps money on racist border policy instead

Nothing like a tree falling on your house to remind you how badly Texas leaders have botched immigration policy.

You think it’s unrelated? Stay with me.

As I sit in what used to be my bedroom staring up at the sky through the three gaping holes in my roof, I’m struck by just how much money Gov. Greg Abbott and his cronies have dumped into his reckless, racist border policy regime, Operation Lone Star. In just three years, Texas has spent more than $11 billion to prop up OLS and its made-for-TV stunts.

To put that in perspective, Texas has spent in just three years almost 14 times what CenterPoint Energy spent on the mobile generators left unused during last month's Hurricane Beryl.

Fallen trees still on homes, families still without power

It’s hard not to look at my city of Houston ‒ with storm debris piling up higher and higher from the May 16 storm that has not been removed, fallen trees still on homes, families still without power – and not feel deep, seething anger at how our leaders have left us to fend for ourselves.

Operation Lone Star began in March 2021, a month after Winter Storm Uri. Hundreds of Texans died during that storm, which nearly took down our electric grid and caused $195 billion in damage.

Yet, there wasn’t a multibillion dollar, whole-of-government effort to fix the grid and make our communities whole again. Instead, we watched our leaders shift billions in utilities’ Uri debt onto consumers and funnel billions more of our taxpayer dollars into an unaccountable, unconstitutional border policy regime that has terrorized our communities without improving public safety.

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Three years and countless extreme weather events later, Hurricane Beryl hit Harris County, which encompasses Houston. I hoped the governor would be moved by video footage of his fellow Texans struggling to recover. I hoped he would be persuaded to send even a fraction of the OLS-earmarked funds to help my neighbors and me recover.

I hoped he would direct the Texas National Guard to help with recovery efforts, as they have in the past. But suffering seems to be a trademark of Abbott’s administration. OLS continues to bleed state resources, all while the legitimate needs of Texans remain unmet. As of the writing of this column, thousands remain without power weeks after Beryl made landfall.

Wouldn't it be great if Gov. Abbott helped Texas recover?

I thought about all this after Beryl knocked power out in my neighborhood and I sat in my dark, hot and damaged house, sweaty and pissed off in solidarity with my community.

Wouldn’t it be great if Gov. Abbott took the climate crisis seriously, helped Houston prepare for extreme storms and dedicated even a fraction of the billions in funding OLS to help us recover?

It would have been nice to have the National Guard deployed to help the millions affected by these storms. Gov. Abbott is quick to deploy them to the border for a manufactured crisis but apparently not for Houstonians facing a real crisis.

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Since compassion and humanity are in short supply in the Texas Capitol, here’s an example of how being kind can actually pay dividends.

As I surveyed the damage to my house, I became overwhelmed and did not know where to turn. However, within hours of the tree falling, community members descended upon my home to help remove the tree, tarp up my roof and clean the water damage.

I remembered that a former client of mine, a woman whose immigration case I worked on, owned a contracting company. My former client is a brave woman who didn’t let bigotry and the complicated mess of our immigration system get her down.

The entire time I represented her, I was amazed by her grace, her compassion and humanity toward me. Compassion and humanity guided our relationship until she no longer needed my services.

Within hours of reaching out to her company, she personally assessed the damage and lent me her company’s services. I sat in amazement as she explained the regulations she would abide by during the repairs. It felt so surreal to sit across from her in my damaged home as she confidently spoke in contractor talk. She asked me if I understood, a question that I had constantly asked her while we navigated the broken immigration system together.

Here was my symbol to persevere, to continue to fight against Operation Lone Star and protect the communities that Gov. Abbott sees as the enemy. Because it’s us, the community, that keeps us safe.

Jennefer Canales-Pelaez, a Houston resident, is the Texas policy attorney and strategist for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving immigration law and policy and advancing immigrant rights.