News & Commentary

Everywhere you look—straight ahead, to the side and even skyward—uniformed officials in grim vehicles, and big objects fat with helium, are watching you. Watching you. Watching. You can always grab your cellphone, tap the camera app, and watch back. That’s what I’ve done since arriving in the Rio Grande Valley just before the Presidential election, to work as ACLU Texas’ reporter for immigration issues. My photos are piling up, especially since the election. Here are a few. If you don’t live here, in our country’s ultimate surveillance zone, give a look. Watch what it’s like to be watched.

The day after the Presidential election felt like a giant funeral in Brownsville, Texas—especially for people like Ninfa Alemán and her children.

Last month the Department of Justice (DOJ) came to its senses and announced it would phase out its use of private prisons, citing inadequate services, safety, and savings. One week later, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it, too, would review its relationship with the private prison industry, and produce that review by November.

The government cannot round up 11 million undocumented immigrants without resorting to unconstitutional policing practices.

Daljeet Singh and Mohammed Chotri were on a Greyhound bus headed from Phoenix to Indianapolis. The two were arrested at gunpoint outside Amarillo, Texas, and held for thirty hours because a fellow passenger thought they were speaking Arabic.

“You’re a whore.”

“Look, but do not stare,” I tell myself, as our group was walked into a circle of hell.

The National Border Patrol Council claims it gets no support from Washington despite bigger budgets and more agents.

The influx of law enforcement officers in the Rio Grande Valley makes residents feel less safe.