Isabela Dias
By Isabela Dias:
When ICE Emptied Out an All-Women Detention Center in Texas, Chaos Ensued
The Fear—and Hope—of Living in Sanctuary
After fleeing domestic violence in Guatemala, I’ve been living inside a Texas church for the past four years. I’m exhausted, but I won’t stop fighting.
Hilda Ramirez is an asylum-seeker from Guatemala who came to the United States in 2014 after fleeing domestic violence. Ramirez and her son, Ivan, now 13, were detained for 11 months in ICE’s Karnes County Residential Center in South Texas. … Read More
If DACA Ends, It Would Be a ‘Catastrophe’ For Dreamers
As many as 700,000 people could be directly impacted by the end of the Obama-era program.
On June 15, 2012, Juan Carlos Cerda was installing a fan on the second-floor bedroom of a house in Preston Hollow, a wealthy neighborhood in north Dallas, when President Barack Obama appeared on television. Standing in the Rose Garden at … Read More
Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma
“There are 364 other days in the year when people’s lives are shaped by the possibility of deportation or a raid.”
On a cold Thursday morning in November 2013, Santiago (a pseudonym) was leaving his apartment on the top floor of an auto repair shop in Washtenaw County, Michigan, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him. Santiago would later be … Read More
Federal Judges Temporarily Block Public Charge Rule, but Public Health Worries Persist
In Texas, where 5.6 million people live in mixed-status families with at least one non-U.S. citizen, the chilling effect from the proposed rule is likely to exacerbate alarming trends.
Last month, Elizabeth Hasse, an immigration attorney with the Tahirih Justice Center in Houston, spoke to a client about renewing her work permit. Hasse had helped the woman secure temporary status years before under a provision in the Violence Against … Read More
