While federal authorities crack down on immigration across the country, Texas has emerged as an epicenter, as federal officials snatch up immigrants and protesters organize in response.
Across the state in the past month, ICE has detained a mother of five outside of a San Antonio immigration court. Outside an Austin middle school, another mother and her three children were detained and sent to Mexico. Construction workers on UTSA’s campus were arrested, and a Honduran father and his 9-year-old son from California are being held at a facility in Houston.
On Sunday, hundreds in Houston and San Antonio protested the detainments across the country, both in California and at home in Texas. “It’s an abomination,” one attendee told KSAT. The protests appear peaceful and have not yet received wrath from Washington, D.C. — but Abbott has voiced support for Trump’s actions in Los Angeles, and called for the federal government “to fully enforce the laws of the United States.”
“[Authorities are] trying to deport people as fast as they possibly can,” U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, told CBS News, praising the government’s deportation efforts. “This is the tip of the iceberg … It’s not going to be just LA, it’ll be cities all over the country, as we continue to deport people.”
Austin-based attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, who’s been practicing immigration law for the past 20 years and represents families across Texas, likens the Texas and nationwide arrests to “kidnappings,” describing them as “absolutely immoral and unethical.”
Lincoln-Goldfinch went viral on social media for a press conference where she was seen with a father and two little girls whose mother Carmen was arrested outside a San Antonio courthouse after an immigration judge had dismissed her hearing and told her she could leave.
“I keep thinking, it can’t get worse. The last worst was the family separations in 2018 and now we’re seeing family separations 2.0,” Lincoln-Goldfinch told The Barbed Wire. “People are being detained for following the rules, so that the people who are going to their court hearings and going to their ICE check-ins are being detained for no cause.”
Since Trump’s administration took office, arrests by ICE have hit 100,000, according to government data reviewed by CBS News. Texas is one of the top states for ICE detainees, according to Axios. They’re taken to facilities where questions have been raised about the possibility of human rights violations. Texas has also reopened controversial facilities that are reportedly being used as jailing facilities for families with children.
“It’s difficult for us as lawyers to figure out how to advise people about how to protect themselves, and it’s incredibly demoralizing and devastating to see the impact on these families and these children, that they have their parents taken from them, or worse, that the children are also detained,” Lincoln-Goldfinch told The Barbed Wire. “It’s as bad as it’s ever been, and I certainly hope that there is some relief to this quickly.”
This comes as Texas lawmakers have been busy making life harder for immigrants. Last week, Texas agreed to end a long-standing practice granting in-state tuition to undocumented students. The policy had been in place since 2001 (and is still effective in 24 other states), until the Department of Justice recently ruled it unconstitutional. And Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to sign the Trump-backed Senate Bill 8, “the most significant anti-immigrant legislation to pass this session.”
Once signed, the bill would require Texas county jails to cooperate with ICE agents, run immigration checks on all inmates — and possibly face punishment if they fail to do so.
For mixed status families or families who are undocumented, Lincoln-Goldfinch advises to have an attorney, not for if they face problems, but when.
And unlike California, which is resisting federal raids, Texas leaders have been cooperating with Trump’s edicts.
“What makes Texas unique, other than the fact that we share a border with Mexico and we have such a large Hispanic population, is that the government of the state is more than happy to cooperate with ICE activities. So for example, lately, we’ve seen a lot of clients get arrested after they’ve been pulled over by state troopers who are collaborating with ICE. So there’s more collaboration in Texas between state and local law enforcement and ICE,” Lincoln-Goldfinch told The Barbed Wire.
She said there are two main things to keep in mind in case of an emergency. One, families should consult with an immigration attorney about each individual case.
- Families, she said, should also have a plan that includes: Discussing what to do if parents are detained and making sure family members know how to access bank accounts
Lincoln-Goldfinch says if you have a mixed status family it’s important to involve your children in the conversations because “the kids know what’s going on too.”
