CLEVELAND – Verónica Martínez, her husband Edgar Rincón and their two children now live in Cleveland after living in El Paso, Texas, for more than a decade.
Before 2012, the family lived across the southern border, in Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua, Mexico.
“It’s a mix, very symbiotic. In other words, both merge, so to speak. Both are intertwined,” she said.
Martínez said she noticed a big cultural shift when she moved from the southern border to the Midwest. While she still meets other immigrants, a smaller percentage of the population is from Latin America.
Still, Martínez said they all play an important role.
“The greatness of this country is precisely because of immigrants, not only immigrants from Latin America and Mexico, but also immigrants from other countries,” she said.
Martinez said she has noticed a recent increase in anti-immigrant sentiment. This comes after the number of U.S. Border Patrol encounters with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border surpassed 200,000 late last year, a record high, according to the Pew Research Center. Looking specifically at Ohio, the Hispanic population is over 500,000 people, more than double what it was in 2000.
Now Martinez has expressed fear that the political divide could lead to violence, like the 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, when a man targeting Latinos killed 23 people at a Walmart.
César Cuahtémoc García Hernández is a law professor at Ohio State University. He grew up in McAllen, Texas – a border town 11 hours southeast of El Paso.
“We have certainly seen elected officials and candidates for elected office in the state of Ohio repeatedly criticize immigration policies recently,” García Hernández said.
Despite Ohio’s distance from the border, immigration has become a polarizing issue across the state, García Hernández said.
“Urban centers like Columbus and other smaller cities like Akron have taken a more welcoming attitude toward migration and migrants than some of the smaller, more rural communities across the state,” he said.
Given the political attention surrounding the southern border, it is more important than ever to look at immigration policy from a humanitarian perspective, Martínez said.
“In this country, a land of opportunity, respect for human rights, that is, the human right to a better life, must continue to prevail,” she said.
It starts with destigmatization and appreciation, said Martínez.
“We know engineers, doctors, mechanics and construction workers here from different areas who are migrants – who are migrants and who have worked and made very important contributions to the country,” she said.
And as the presidential election campaign approaches, it is crucial that all voters go to the polls in November.
“I really think that’s the most important thing – that we start making our voice heard by MPs,” Martínez said.
