Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance (RITA)
Organizing Texan communities around the need for immigration reform
In July 2009, the Border Network for Human Rights(BNHR) and its partners across the state of Texas organized the Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance, or RITA. RITA is an advocacy entity that gives community organizations and its allies in the business, religious and law enforcement sectors a voice to express the need for comprehensive immigration reform. But RITA is not just about immigration reform. It is a long-term project to build capacity in community organizing in Texas, capacity that can later be utilized for other campaigns, including immigrant integration.
Texas, the state with the second largest population of immigrants, is a place where many different sectors have a stake in immigration reform, such as businesses, religious groups, law enforcement officials and community organizations. Texas, however, has not been a leader in the policy debate over immigration in the past few years. In founding RITA, the BNHR aimed to remedy this situation and to include all sectors in a reasonable conversation about the broken immigration system.
RITA’s Executive Committee is made of the following organizations. Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition; Catholic Charities of Dallas; Welcoming Immigrants Network; Coalition for Immigration Reform of Dallas/Ft. Worth & North Texas; Border Network for Human Rights; La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE); Movimiento del Valle por los Derechos Humanos; Paso Del Norte Civil Rights Project; Proyecto Libertad; and Mi Familia Vota Civic Participation. RITA also has more than 100 supporting organizations.
