Visit to Ted Cruz's Office

In the latest post, we organized a mini-visit at the office of Senator Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz in downtown Houston. Three comrades took a nice walk from the Sixth Ward, across Buffalo Bayou, and into the city streets until we arrived at the historic Esperson Building. On the 14th floor, we were buzzed by the aides until we were permitted to come into the office.

The young white aides were very polite, polished, and generous as they offered water as they seated us in a small comfortable meeting room, surrounded with emblems of American patriotism, the senator’s several “Love Me” wall awards and recognitions, and a tidy stack of conservative books. We should note that this visit occurred the morning after the Senate agreement on the budget, which failed to address DACA or immigration in any way, much to the disappointment and anger of many DREAMers. We discussed the senator’s press release and how he obviously disregarded the migration issue, though after the budget deal was reached, Senate Majority Leader McConnell had specifically stated that this budget agreement would permit the Senate to address migration immediately. 

Our discussion points centered on our concerns with our students and our college:

1. Senator Cruz has not yet provided leadership to demonstrate how our undocumented students are threatened in our communities by the current administration.
2. Our students are threatened, their families are threatened, and thus the college is threatened for any definition of “success.”
3. As educators, our priorities are to see student success, but the senator has been largely dis-engaged from the movement to protect DACA or “DREAMers.”

The aides’ only discussion point was that the senator will not accept “amnesty” for migration. Though we mentioned that President Ronald Reagan had signed an enormous amnesty with significant economic benefits, the aides had no response. In fact, both aides were very  uninformed about the Reagan amnesty: “I had just learned about Ronald Reagan …” [! -- NOTE: While understanding that aides are not responsible (or not?) to understand all recent political history, we found this odd that very enthusiastic supporters of the GOP narrative are apparently clueless about those recent policies; certainly the Senator is more informed, and we know that. But this does also reflect that even “informed” citizens are truly clueless about the broken migration system in the U.S., as we’ve attempted to discuss in the Advocate.]

Our conversation continued for about 20 minutes. We emphasized that the Senator must lead this discussion to protect our communities. We emphasized, too, that our students are immediately threatened and few if any institutions are challenging this inertia of silence. Again, the aides were very polite, very friendly, very uninformed. They emphasized that they would take notes of our visit and “tally” our position, forward the tally to their Washington office, and every night the senator would look at the “tally.”

We asked what was more effective -- a call, a visit, a letter -- and the aides said that they were all equal [this response is contrast with other discussions, and we need to understand this more]. We left the office, impressed with ourselves, found a coffee shop in the tunnels, and discussed additional strategies to be more informed and more assertive with our voices, our citizenship, and our educational resources. The morning was very positive, even if frustrating.

In another time, we’d like to discuss the point of “democracy” in this system, and if our visit was in fact practicing good “citizenship,” but for now, we felt that we did something -- we have rights that some others do not have. We exercised our rights. Let us celebrate these small things.