Mayor Pete Saenz’ op-ed in The Laredo Morning Times last week was an abdication of leadership. By openly waving the white flag of surrender for all to see, he has betrayed the people of Laredo.
He stands against every courageous vote by our City Council to oppose the border wall since this project was announced. If we allow the wall to be built, it will damage neighborhoods, places of worship, parks, our community college, family ranches, and our Catholic orphanage. It will be unlike anything that we have witnessed in our history. It would transfer land that we have owned for 265 years into the hands of the federal government, forever.
It will be a sin our grandchildren will find impossible to forgive. However, the wall is not a done deal. We can stop it. This is a battle to protect our land, our rights, and the very soul of Laredo.
The mayor’s embarrassing plea for Laredo to bow down in submission to federal overreach asks us to surrender all of Laredo’s public lands along the Río Grande – including the Paso del Indio that marks Laredo’s founding in 1755. It also gives the Feds permission to put up razor wire, like that used on the Berlin Wall and North Korean border, in parks stretching from Father McNaboe to Santa Rita. Our children and families play in these places.
Rather than defend us from this disastrous project, Mayor Saenz advocates laying out the red carpet for the federal government to come in and seize public lands, violate landowner’s private property rights, suspend dozens of laws, and destroy the very lifeblood of Laredo. Don Tomás Sanchez, Laredo’s founder, must be rolling over in his grave as our Mayor kowtows to a bully.
Mayor Saenz may not realize this, but the wall is not just a fence. It’s much worse. If built, it would destroy Laredo’s riverfront for generations. It would create a never-before-seen militarized zone that would rip out land along the Río Grande the width of half a football field for government-only roads, floodlights, and a 30-foot steel prison wall.
Let us remember that the North Dakota contractor given the most recent contract, Fisher Industries, is already implicated in criminal wrongdoing and was part of Steve Bannon’s “We Build The Wall” fiasco. The Fisher wall is already crumbling, and Bannon has been arrested for fraud. They don’t deserve $289.5 million of our taxpayer money.
What’s more, even Homeland Security doesn’t believe that the wall is the best way to secure the border. A July report by the DHS Office of Inspector General concluded that the evidence doesn’t support the case for a wall. This is from their own agency.
People who live here know there is no “national emergency” in Laredo. Laredo is not a war zone. CBP data show that apprehensions in Laredo are less than 30% from the mid-1980s and late-1990s. Meanwhile, the DEA reports that most narcotics enter by vehicles, not across the river where they want the wall.
Rather than fight for his city, Mayor Saenz has decided to work on behalf of politicians in Washington, DC and extremist wall supporters. What’s most disappointing is not his lack of courage, but his lack of vision. He believes that our community deserves so little that we should allow the US government – which he refers to as “the bear” – to come into our house, take what it wants, and then only ask it for crumbs.
Thankfully, Laredoans are willing to fight for a future greater than what the mayor can imagine for us. Our border region deserves better. We deserve to keep our historic lands and access to our river. We deserve the same protections and rights as people in the rest of the United States. We deserve a bright, prosperous future where we provide real safety and security for our residents: better health care, education, sustainable infrastructure and affordable housing.
Laredo and our waterfront have been tied together for 265 years. It’s the reason we are here. Unfortunately, wall supporters want to obliterate this part of our history.
Our Coalition is standing up and we are growing every day. We are families, landowners, veterans, grandmothers and mothers, and we aren’t willing to sacrifice our children’s future for greed and politics.
This is our land, our culture, our identity, our way of life. We can stop the wall. We can demand that federal dollars be spent on things that our community actually needs. Join us.
We will continue to wave our Texas flag and Laredo flag in this battle. We will be carrying signs of protest and freedom down the streets of Laredo and into the halls of the U.S. Congress. We will not be waving “Saenz of Surrender.”
Signed,
Melissa R. Cigarroa, Carlos E. Flores, Margarita Araiza and Tricia Cortez
on behalf of the No Border Wall Laredo Coalition
Letter to Mayor Pete Saenz; Robert Eads, City Manager; Kristina L. Hale, Asst. City Manager & Acting City Attorney; and United States Representative Henry Cuellar from Attorneys on Behalf of Their Clients
Douglas W. Alexander
Alexander Dubose & Jefferson LLP
Attorneys for Fasken Oil & Ranch, Ltd.
Alberto P. Cardenas Jr.
Vinson & Elkins, LLP
Attorney for Sacred Heart Children’s Home
George Russell Meurer
Kazen, Meurer & Perez, LLP
Attorneys for Laredo College
Carlos Evaristo Flores
Jose “Chito” Vela III
Whitworth Cigarroa, PLLC
Attorneys for Zapata County, Melissa Cigarroa
Richard G. Morales Jr.
Person Mohrer Morales Boddy Garcia Gutierrez PLCC
Attorneys for International Bank of Commerce
Annie LaMantia Cullen
In-House Counsel
Needmore Dolores, LLC
Rebecca Marroquin
Valls & Marroquin, LLP
Attorneys for Emerald River View Development, Ltd.
Re-election, Pete? REALLY? I suggest immediate RESIGNATION.
And to think that my grandmother, whose home at 701 Zaragoza was demolished to build the bridge, was Sara SAENZ Ligarde. She’d wash Pete’s mouth out with soup and paddle his fanny….on his way out the door of the mayor’s office.