News & Commentary

Inside a Texas detention center, 3-year-old Sammy* was asleep next to his father, Ever Reyes-Mejia, on the ground with a tin foil emergency blanket when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told Ever that he needed to go see an immigration judge and fill out some paperwork. Ever asked whether he should leave his son asleep and was told that he would return shortly and there was no need to wake him.

Grace,* an indigenous woman from a small village in Guatemala, came to the United States seeking protection from beatings, sexual assault, and death threats. Grace made the long and treacherous journey from Central America, arriving at the border in June. She was deeply traumatized, having been raped, beaten, and threatened with death for more than two decades at the hands of her abusive partner, a non-indigenous man, who frequently disparaged and mocked her for being indigenous and unable to read and write.

Good things don’t always come to those who wait. 

On Tuesday, in response to the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging family separation, a federal court ordered the reunification of thousands of families torn apart by the Trump administration. The decision was a rare victory for civil rights, immigrants’ rights, and common human decency in the age of Trump.

In the federal courthouse in Brownsville, in the space of 75 minutes, 63 people were read their charges, asked to plead guilty or not guilty, and sentenced. Handcuffed and chained at the waist, they had to stoop to raise their right hands.

Like many on the border (and elsewhere), I’ve been working day and night to fight President Trump's monstrous and morally irredeemable family separation policy. But in spite of the now daily injustices wrought by the Trump administration, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security, somehow I feel so energized—overwhelmed, but energized. Finally, we are not alone, and we feel everyone’s energy bent towards ending this crisis.

66 children a day ripped away from their parents, who beg officials to tell them where their kids are. Children as young as 53 weeks or 18 months old. This isn’t a dystopic TV show: it’s Attorney General Sessions’ “zero-tolerance” prosecution atrocity for immigrant parents and kids who cross the border together. And prosecution numbers have just begun to be ramped up: the thousands of families affected are just a start for this evil scheme (658 children were separated from May 6 to 19, which included only ten court days).

Apparently it’s not enough for the Trump administration to lock up pregnant women, deny people their constitutional rights, and separate children with disabilities from their families all in the name of immigration enforcement. Now the President, ably assisted by Governor Abbott, is sending the National Guard to occupy the southern border as well.

As law enforcement agents escalate their intrusions into-and occupations of-Texas's immigrant communities, it's important for Texans to have access to real-time information. With immigrants, refugees and travelers being targeted with new or more aggressive enforcement tactics, the ACLU and its partners are committed to helping people understand their constitutional rights.