Community and faith leaders, business owners, longtime residents and activists upset by the Comal County Young Republicans’ (CCYR) recent call for non-white minority populations and immigrants to “remigrate” will gather for a Unity Rally from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Aug. 22, at 500 Main Plaza in downtown New Braunfels.
The event is hosted by Hill Country Indivisible and Guardians of the Republic NBTX. It also features live music and a taco truck.
Austin Sanctuary Network (ASN), which supports immigrants fleeing violence or facing deportation, will offer information about community resources.
Organizer Elizabeth Herlitz Cortes, a New Braunfels-based opera singer and mother of two better known on social media as Soprano Big Sister, said the event is about community, not politics.
“The hope was always that people could see past the party rhetoric and just come together as people, neighbors and community,” she said. “We can have different politics, but our humanity is the same.”
On Aug. 10, Comal County Young Republicans (CCYR) shared on Facebook highlights from their Aug. 3 meeting with Cyan Quinn of the White Papers Policy Institute (WPPI). Some 74 people attended.
The institute urges white people to save the United States by encouraging “diaspora” populations to remigrate to their “ancestral homes.”
Remigration is a form of ethnic cleansing.
“Cyan showed us that we do not simply have to sit back and watch our nation die,” CCYR said in their Facebook post. “A major part of the cure to the sickness of our nation is remigration. The murderers, the traffickers, fraudsters, and all who came here illegally can and must be deported. The visa programs must end. We must have an immigration net moratorium. However, that still leaves us with many diaspora populations, many of whom would return to their ancestral home if given the chance. This is where WPPI’s proposed incentives for voluntary remigration come into play.”
Hunter Bledsoe with Indivisible Hill Country said there’s no place for this kind of rhetoric in New Braunfels, which was founded and settled by German immigrants in 1845.
“New Braunfels has a rich history of immigrants, and that’s what makes New Braunfels what it is, the German population, the Hispanic population,” he said. “I mean the diversity here is what makes our city so amazing, and to think that we have a certain part of the population that thinks it’s okay to say ‘well, you don’t belong here’ after they’ve built the community, it’s wrong and there’s no place for hate here. I know that people use that as a slogan, but it’s true. We need to come together and build the community we want for everybody, not try to divide and conquer and destroy the community that we have.”
Cortes, who also is a guest columnist with New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, is no stranger to controversy.
The activist uses her TikTok, Instagram and Facebook channels to challenge politicians at every level of government and urges voters to think beyond party loyalty.
She made a video that blew up on TikTok about the recent mayoral runoff between incumbent Neil Linnartz and Michael French, calling them Neal Taco and Candidate Orange.
The video is currently at 214,000 views on Instagram, 28,000 on Facebook and 50,000 on TikTok.
“I didn’t agree with either of them, and that was what my video was about, how to make the choice as a blue voter. How does my vote move the needle for my own democratic purposes, and for defending democracy and our Constitution?”
Cortes hopes to leverage the thousands of followers she’s accrued with viral videos like this to spread the word about Saturday’s event.
“Growth is uncomfortable,” Cortez said in her own Facebook post.
“So is this. The CCYR hosted a group whose own bill targets U.S. citizens and African Americans for removal. Our answer? There is no place for hate in New Braunfels … come see for yourself. Different politics. Same humanity.”