 I was a speaker today at Downtown Houston protest marking one year since the 2nd Trump Inauguration. There were about 400 people at Houston City Hall. Above is me speaking & below is a picture I took of some of the crowd from where I was speaking. Here is what I said: My name is Neil Aquino. I’m the founder of the Houston Democracy Project. Right off I want to tell you—The next action is when you organize it. The First Amendment is your permit. The only credential needed is your presence. This protest is Downtown. But it’s at not the center. In recent weeks, there have been fully grassroots protests to remember Renee Good and oppose ICE, organized in Katy, Clear Lake, Conroe, Kingwood, Galveston, Cypress, Pearland, Sugar Land as well as near the Galleria. I saw last night a new event for the end of the month in La Porte. Much of this is the ongoing and growing infrastructure of the No Kings protests. It is the work we are doing. No community is on the periphery. No person is on the periphery. We are all in this fight. Connect with your neighbor. Connect with your friend or family member anyplace in the Houston region. Let people know they have allies and comrades no matter where they are. We are all in this fight. We are at Houston City Hall. There is a mayor, a city controller and 16 council members. The Mayor is John Whitmire. The Controller is Chris Hollins. The Mayor Pro Tem is Martha Castex-Tatum. She should be seen as a citywide official. There are 10 Democrats and 6 Republicans on Council. We have a new Councilmember, Alejandra Salinas, who won election in good part because she spoke about ICE and democracy & said she was willing to stand up to Mayor Whitmire. We must hold Ms. Salinas to her pledges. Every elected official takes an oath to the Constitution. So does every police officer. They all must meet that oath. When the city of Houston and the Houston Police Department play a role in turning over people to ICE, elected officials and police must remember the oath to the Constitution they took, as due process is violated, U.S. citizens are abducted & protestors are gassed and attacked. Call, e-mail and speak to Houston City Council. You can speak at Council most Tuesdays at 2 PM and once a month in the early evening. Learn the details of the process and demand local accountability. Mayor Whitmire has made clear that nothing will cause him to address Trump and Abbott. The Pride Crosswalk in Montrose, Ice in Houston/Harris County & the threats to free Harris County elections in 2026 are all connected. We must lead the response ourselves. Our opponents seek to criminalize political opposition and restrict free speech. We are confronting authoritarians and white supremacists. It will not be inherently safe. The thing is of course, that a future under authoritarian, white supremacist government that can’t be removed, will also not be safe and it will be terrible. We have rights. We have First Amendment rights, and as we’ve been told over and over all our lives, we have Second Amendment rights. We have the right to show up, to speak up and to self-defense. We are the ones who will show up when habeas corpus is suspended, when Greg Abbott does not permit Harris County to have free and fair elections in 2026 and when low flying helicopters terrorize Houston communities as we’ve seen in Chicago. The Pride Crosswalk in Montrose, Ice in Houston/Harris County & the threats to free Harris County elections in 2026, are connected to rising hatred across the nation, ICE in Minnesota and threats to Greenland and any hope for multi-racial democracy in the Western Hemisphere and Europe. The next action is when you organize it. The First Amendment is your permit. The only credential needed is your presence. No community is on the periphery. No person is on the periphery. None of us are alone. We are all in this fight. 
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