News & Commentary

Un domingo la pareja “Luis” y “Berta” iban a llegar tarde a misa y estaban conduciendo más rápido que el límite de velocidad. La pareja fue detenida por el agente de del Departamento de Seguridad Pública (DPS) Mirna Gracia. La cámara de la patrulla registró lo que sucedió después.

In Texas, State troopers have become frontline enforcers of federal immigration laws. In recent years, and especially since Donald Trump was elected president, the Texas Highway Patrol, part of the state’s Department of Public Safety, or DPS, has developed a well-oiled deportation machine that scoops up drivers who’ve committed minor traffic infractions, then funnels them to the Border Patrol and sometimes Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Passengers and pedestrians who weren’t even driving are also taken into custody. Caught in the Texas deportation pipeline, immigrants’ lives are damaged or ruined, along with those of their children, many of whom were born and raised in the U.S.

I am the son of Mexican immigrants. I live in Houston, the most diverse city in the country. And I have family in the Rio Grande Valley where CBP’s abuses are a matter of routine. I know our border communities and the hardships they face, and I am here today to tell you that CBP is out of control.

The Trump and Abbott administrations continue to target Texas’s immigrant communities for profiling and discrimination. But if the population of undocumented immigrants declines, so will Texas’ economy.

In South Texas, Rosa Maria and Jane Doe face the cruel realities of the administration’s immigration enforcement policies.

At this very moment, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is detaining Rosa Maria Hernandez, a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who recently underwent gallbladder surgery, and is refusing to release her into the care of her family, despite her doctor’s advice. How exactly did this child with developmental delays become the Trump administration’s target for deportation? It’s an egregious case of government overreach, and now the subject of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit.

After Jane Doe, a 17-year-old immigrant from Central America, found out she was pregnant last month, she decided to have an abortion. But the Office of Refugee Resettlement — the federal government agency charged with caring for unaccompanied immigrant minors once they enter the country — is prohibiting her from getting one.

The fight to kill SB4, Texas’ unconstitutional anti-immigrant law, is not over yet.

With SB4 blocked and DACA rescinded, Texas’s immigrant communities face a future of fear and uncertainty.