Leqaa Kordia, 32, attended her asylum hearing via webcam on Thursday, Oct. 23. The blue light of the monitor displayed multiple windows framing her lawyer, the judge, and the government prosecutor. Her team laid out an argument it had made multiple times already: If Kordia, who is Palestinian, is deported to Israel, she will be […]
Category: Immigration
The Barbed Wire immigration coverage
Posted inNews
‘None of It Makes Any Sense’: New Details in the July 4 ICE Attack Show Holes in Feds’ Case
On July 12, Amber Lowrey arrived at her sister’s apartment in Fort Worth. The FBI had raided it days earlier, Lowrey said, and she surveyed the wreckage: shattered windows, broken doors, damaged floorboards from a flash bang. Agents seized four “pages of map documents,” according to a property receipt reviewed by The Barbed Wire. Lowrey’s […]
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She Survived 141 Days in ICE Custody Thanks to a ‘Beautiful Sisterhood.’ Now She’s Fighting for Those Still Inside.
On the evening of Feb. 11, 22-year-old Ward Sakeik sat on a plane from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Miami. She and her husband, Taahir Shaikh, were returning from their honeymoon, but he was sitting a few rows away. She didn’t look back at him — her handlers told her that even smiling at him […]
Posted inNews
A ‘Shameful’ Legacy: Texas Has Officially Opened an ICE Detention Facility at Site of WWII Internment Camp
In El Paso on Sunday, the Trump Administration opened the doors to Camp East Montana, the largest ICE detention facility in the country’s history. It reportedly cost $1.2 billion under a U.S. Defense Department contract. The new facility is at Fort Bliss, one of five sites where Texas held detainees of Japanese descent, as well […]
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Nearly a Million Texas Students Have an Undocumented Parent. Who Will Protect Them When ICE Comes?
Eighteen-year-old Jonatan Pech sat in the passenger seat of his family’s sedan as their headlights pierced the morning darkness. His older brother, Cristian, gripped the steering wheel. The music shuffled between Houston rap to salsa and then R&B, lullabies for his sister Esme who slept in the backseat while his mom, Teresa, looked out the […]
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California Priests Said They’ve Made ICE Agents ‘Scatter.’ Can Clergy Do the Same in Texas?
In early July, an asylum seeker from Nicaragua arrived for a routine hearing at the immigration court in Harlingen, Texas. Inside the nondescript, tan brick building, Carlos went through his case, explaining that he’d been in the U.S. for the last five years. In that time, he’d attended every court date, every ICE check-in, and […]
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What Has Abbott’s $100 Million in Border Security Bought Taxpayers? Office Renovations and Expensive Trucks.
Six $83,000 pickup trucks. K-9 dog food. A pink-trimmed concrete office jokingly described as the Taj Mahal. Since 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott’s highly-touted Operation Lone Star has sent more than $100 million to Texas counties, in grants earmarked for border security purposes — but in reality, the funding has also covered items like office renovations […]
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What’s the Latest on Birthright Citizenship? What Trump’s Order Means for Immigrant Families
This story was originally written by Mel Leonor Barclay and published by The 19th* News. Within hours of his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would withhold U.S. citizenship from the children of some immigrants born in the United States, calling the order a “big one.” The executive order would end a right that […]
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She Was a Rising Senior on the Honor Roll. ICE Just Upended her Life.
This story was originally written by Nadra Nittle and published by The 19th* News. On July 4, Nory Sontay Ramos stepped off a flight from San Antonio into a country she hardly recognized: Guatemala. The summer wasn’t supposed to start this way. The 17-year-old had plans. In early June, she wrapped up 11th grade on a high note, […]
Posted inOpinion
How Do You Celebrate a Country That Doesn’t Love You Back?
Last month, my mom sent me a video of a little girl named Galilea from Dallas. She’s sitting on her gray couch, clutching a brown plush dog, remembering her mom’s voice, her clothes, and the way she would say goodnight. “My mom is supposed to be with us,” she says. “ICE took her away.” On […]