EXCLUSIVE

“Families and children are terrified” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents breaking into homes without warrants, Democratic state Rep. Josey Garcia, of San Antonio, told The Barbed Wire this week.

That’s one of the reasons Garcia and 20 other Texas state representatives say they’ve signed a letter demanding that Congress enact serious agency reforms to rein in federal immigration officials. 

Garcia, the first female veteran elected to the Texas State House of Representatives, said the agency’s recent actions remind her of when she served in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“I’ve been overseas during conflict, I’ve been overseas during humanitarian operations,” Garcia said. “One thing that I know for sure, is that what’s happening right now is something akin to wartime scenarios, and we did not sign-up for that here.”

Garcia said she has been particularly affected by the cases in which uniformed members of the U.S. military have been deported by the country they pledged to defend.

After months of intimidation, violence, and unlawful detainments — along with the extrajudicial killings of both Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota — the Texas lawmakers joined more than 40 other state legislators across the United States in demanding four major reforms. 

The four proposed reforms are:

  • Requiring ICE to obtain warrants before detaining, arresting, or searching a person or home
  • Ending “roving patrols,” which lawmakers say are empowering ICE agents to indiscriminately stop and question cars
  • Banning ICE agents from wearing masks and adding a body camera to their uniforms
  • Enforcing consistent rules of engagement for agents to follow, including a “universal code of conduct”

The letter, spearheaded by the progressive organization Defend America Action, excoriates President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans for their choices that, lawmakers wrote, have allowed ICE to become “an unaccountable paramilitary force that threatens the constitutional rights and safety of the communities we serve.” 

The Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the main facility for family immigration detention in the U.S., is located just an hour away from Garcia’s district. The facility houses hundreds of child detainees, including a 2-month-old infant, and recently reported a measles outbreak. 

The center made headlines when it housed 5-year-old Liam Ramos, the child of asylum-seekers in Minnesota who entered the country by legal means. While Liam was released by a judge, the case highlighted the arrest and detainment of other young children. Outrage followed headlines about Génesis, an Austin-area 5-year-old U.S. citizen, who was arrested and deported after her mother, Karen, called the Austin Police Department at 4:30 a.m. for help. A man — whom she had an expired restraining order against — showed up at their home before dawn, Chief Lisa Davis told the Austin American-Statesman. APD turned Karen and her daughter over to ICE, the newspaper reported.

Democratic state Rep. Christina Morales, of Houston, told The Barbed Wire, “there is no accountability” for what ICE is doing.

“This is security without constitutionality, and that isn’t strength — it’s overreach,” Morales said. “Our community, our citizens, the people of Texas believe in strength and the Constitution. So, we shouldn’t be using fear and these tactics that are unconstitutional as a governing strategy.”

More than 70% of her district is of Latino origin, with many people living in Spanish-speaking and mixed status households, Morales said. 

It was in Houston that local police called ICE instead of reuniting 15-year-old Emmanuel Gonzalez, who has an intellectual disability, with his mother when he walked away from her fruit stand in October. Within hours, she filed a missing persons report, but it took a full week before she found him in federal immigration custody. Emmanuel — whose records showed symptoms consistent with autism — remained in federal immigration custody for 48 days, despite his mother’s pleas for him to be released into her care. 

The tense atmosphere has been exacerbated by stories of parents getting arrested by ICE outside of schools or driving to their jobs — like 18-year-old Jonatan Pech, who was on his way to college freshman orientation when ICE took his mom.

“ICE are supposed to be, you know, finding hardened criminals,” Morales said. 

“It’s just heartbreaking, because guess what, when those kids get home from school, their parents aren’t there,” Morales continued. “My grandson, he’s 9 years old, asked me, ‘Why does Donald Trump hate Mexicans?’ And I was just very shocked by him saying that to me, and I asked him, ‘Why do you think Donald Trump hates Mexicans?’ And he said, ‘Because my friend at school, my best friend, is afraid that her parents will be deported.’” 

This letter is far from the only recent call for immigration reform and accountability.

Also this week, Texas congresswoman Sylvia Garcia filed legislation that would give local police more autonomy from immigration enforcement, if passed.

Separately, Morales, Garcia, Democratic state Rep. Chris Turner of Arlington, and 36 of their colleagues submitted a signed letter to state Rep. Cole Hefner — the Republican chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Veterans Affairs on Feb. 10 — calling for a public hearing into allegations of widespread human rights abuses at the Camp East Montana detention facility at Fort Bliss, which was used in World War II as an internment camp. 

That same day, ICE acting Director Todd Lyons and other top immigration officials testified about ICE policies, training practices, and the deaths of Good and Pretti at an oversight meeting in the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security.

As a leader, Turner said that it is his obligation to speak out alongside “the millions of Americans who are outraged over what they’re seeing from this administration.” 

“I don’t believe one letter is going to, you know, solve the problem,” Turner said in an interview with The Barbed Wire. “I think we all have to continue to speak out, speak up, and raise our voices — whether you’re in elected office or not.”

“The debate around immigration has been going on for decades, and fundamentally, Congress has to pass comprehensive immigration reform,” he continued. “But what has happened in the last year since Trump came back into office, is an entirely different level.”

If ICE continues to go down the path it’s on, Turner said what’s at stake is losing “what makes America, ‘America.’” That means, he said, losing the right to due process and protections against illegal search and seizure. 

Despite the pitfall of despair and hopelessness that can be oh-so-attractive to get lost in during dark and deeply scary times, Garcia said she remains hopeful because of the community organizing and advocacy herself and others are doing on the ground.

“Everybody who is tired, everybody who is witnessing what’s happening right now, we see this as un-American,” Garcia said. “We have people that are gonna stand up and fight, because what you can’t do to the will of veterans or Texans is weaponize the Lord Jesus Christ against us, or take our will to fight.”