Human Rights
New Lawsuit Challenges Dozens of Texas Anti-Abortion Restrictions
A Feminist Literary Classic Gets a Timely Reissue, and it’s Still Maddeningly Relevant
How many times do women have to write this book before someone takes us seriously?
Nearly four decades after she penned it, Joanna Russ’ How to Suppress Women’s Writing has just been reissued by the University of Texas Press, and it’s as...Read More
A Catch-22 in the Crimmigration System in Harris County
In Houston, a lack of transparency and poor communication between immigration and criminal courts has created a civil rights nightmare and a clog in the system.
Abysmal record-keeping and an increasingly secretive immigration force have created a catch-22 for undocumented defendants accused of low-level crimes in Housto...Read More
ICE Issues More Detainers in Texas, Withholds Crucial Data
In the past, ICE regularly wasted local resources by not following up on its own detainer requests. Now, that information is secret.
The use of immigration detainers — requests for jails to hold immigrants for an extra 48 hours so they can potentially be deported — has spiked in Texas sin...Read More
Asylum-Seeker’s Release Shows Activists Can Win Under Trump’s ICE
But it ain’t easy.
It took more than four months, a bombardment of letters and calls and protests, an FBI investigation, a federal lawsuit and the intervention of at least 46 memb...Read More
ICE Arrestó Casi Tres Veces Más Inmigrantes De Lo Reportado Durante las Redadas del Año Pasado en Austin
La agencia declaró en febrero pasado que la operación realizó 51 arrestos, pero información obtenida por el Observer reveló que el número fue de 132.
Read in English. En febrero pasado, una redada de Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sacudió el área de Austin, llevando consigo a un amplio número de...Read More
ICE Arrested Nearly Three Times as Many Immigrants During Last Year’s Austin Raid Than Previously Reported
The agency said last February's operation netted 51 arrests, but an Observer information request revealed the number is 132.
Leer en español. Last February, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid rocked the Austin area, sweeping up a broad swath of immigrants, including sc...Read More
Guatemalan Family Takes ‘Sanctuary’ in Austin Church — Again
A mother and her 11-year-old son won relief from deportation under Obama. But Trump’s ICE took it away.
Two weeks before Donald Trump won the presidency, Hilda Ramirez and her son, Ivan, were all smiles as they announced they’d won a yearlong reprieve from being...Read More
‘Pressure, Dissuasion, Coercion’: Trump Officials Repeatedly Intervened to Stop Teen Refugees’ Abortions
Government emails show that federal officials intervened to prevent abortions, forced teenage girls to call their parents and sent them to religiously affiliated “crisis pregnancy centers.”
In early March, a minor girl staying in a shelter for undocumented immigrants in Texas run by BCFS, a religiously affiliated nonprofit, convinced a judge to let...Read More