Within our own backyard, one of the most outlandish and unbelievable events was being planned by the on campus Young Conservatives of Texas political group. The “Catch an Illegal Immigrant” game that was proposed on campus by the Young Conservatives of Texas caught quite a bit of controversy from the students and faculty at the University of Texas. The game entailed finding various people around campus labeled “Illegal immigrants” and bringing them back to the group in exchange for a $25 gift card. When I had heard about the event, I did a double take as I had to read everything again. There could be nothing more controversial or demeaning than what was described in the event page. When I looked through the comments, one particular comment stuck out to me – a human being can not be illegal. Calling another person illegal is completely out of line with the truth but from a decency standpoint is not the way to describe a person. The term they should be using instead of illegal immigrants is undocumented workers. Undocumented workers live a second class lifestyle around the country, there is a constant fear of deportation or having a family broken up. The most insensitive part of the whole thing was their treatment of people’s lives as some sort of game. The response from the rest of the university mirrored much of the same sentiment.
The backlash went from a few angry comments to a school wide protest very quickly. Longhorns were unafraid to stand up for what they believed in. Actual undocumented longhorns themselves spoke without any fear to students around campus. Two of the more obvious sentiments about the whole thing were that the planning behind the event was very poorly thought out and the event itself was more of a demonstration to get the attention of as many people as possible rather than something to taken literally. When all said and done, even associated republican candidates distanced themselves from the event. Specifically, Greg Abbott, who Lorenzo Garcia had worked for in the past, would not comment about the event. There was no joking matter about the topic as controversial as immigration.
In the aftermath of the school wide protest, the event ended up being canceled. The pressure came from the students all the way to the top, namely Bill Powers, and outside of the university news had spread all throughout the country about YCT’s event. Everyone including conservative media outlets like Fox reported on the matter and jumped on the disrespectful nature of YCT’s idea. The University board of regents chairman and chancellor even issued their own statement deriding the approach of the organization. I think it would have been a huge mistake to go through with the event, the decision to cancel was the only sensible decision the YCT had made all week. The tension and pressure was building up, but retaliation would be sure to come if something like this were to happen. Lorenzo Garcia wanted to talk. After getting the attention of the entire nation, would he be able to follow up?