Senators call for SXSW to leave Austin 'until anti-immigrant law is repealed'

Democratic representatives ask for next March’s event to be
relocated to a different state in protest of SB4, which was signed
into law last month

Tom Dart in Houston
Thursday 8 June 2017 14.39 BST

Amid a growing backlash over Texas’s stringent new immigration law, two US senators have called for the SXSW festival to leave Austin.

A letter to the organiser of the major annual music and technology event sent by the Democratic senators Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada asks for next March’s event to be relocated to a different state “until the recent anti-immigrant SB4 law is repealed”.

Signed into law last month amid fierce protests, SB4 threatens to criminalize members of law enforcement who do not comply with requests to hold detained immigrants for federal pick-up, in effect banning so-called sanctuary cities. It also empowers individual officers to ask about the immigration status of people they detain. In the letter, the senators call it “one of the most extreme anti-immigrant and discriminatory state laws signed to date”.

In a statement, Roland Swenson, the CEO and co-founder of SXSW, said he agreed with criticism of the bill but “we will stay here and continue to make our event inclusive while fighting for the rights of all”.

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