The Young Conservatives of Texas, a conservative student group at the University of Texas at Austin, say they're canceling plans to hold the "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" game previously planned for Wednesday. In a statement, group chairman Lorenzo Garcia said the chapter's members had make the decision out of concern that "the university will retaliate against them and that the protest against the event could create a safety issue for our volunteers" after it drew condemnation from Texas Democrats and a threat of expulsion from campus officials.
As planned, the game would have seen some club members wandering around the UT-Austin campus wearing signs that said "illegal immigrant", while students who captured them and led them to the Young Conservatives' recruiting table would be rewarded with $25 gift certificates. Garcia, who had previously said that it was intended to "spark a campus-wide discussion about the issue of illegal immigration", said on Tuesday that the idea for the event had been "intentionally over the top in order to get attention for the subject", and added that he was "shocked at the uproar over the event's premise and at the personal attacks against me", pointing to obscene emails and messages he had received.
"It is a simple fact that illegal immigration is a concern in this country and that it is one we must face," Garcia wrote, adding, "President Obama wants to address the issue during his final term, and students on college campuses, conservative, liberal, or somewhere in between, should not be silenced when they attempt to make their voices heard about an issue that is so important to our futures."
According to the Associated Press, the Texas Democratic Party was quick to trace connections between Garcia and state Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican gubernatorial candidate for whom the group chairman had recently been a paid staffer and who Democrats have been pressuring to come out either for or against the Texas DREAM Act - legislation which would allow young people brought to the US illegally by their parents as children receive in-state tuition at Texas universities. "[Abbott] must come out and immediately denounce Wednesday's event," state Democratic chairman Gilberto Hinojosa told the AP. "This style of hatred and fear is not the type of leadership Texas deserves." Abbott's Press Secretary, Avdiel Huerta, told the news service that the "campaign has no affiliation with this repugnant effort." Similarly, Gregory Vincent, the university's vice president for diversity, told the AP that those who participated in the game would be exercising their freedom of speech "to the detriment of others", adding that if they carried out their plans, they would be "willfully ignoring the honor code" of the UT-Austin campus, a violation which can lead to expulsion.
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