Human Rights
A San Antonio Art Show Quietly Foregrounds Migrants’ Stories
After Years of Working with ‘Ritmo’ Detainees, I Know the Inhumane Facility Doesn’t Deserve a Second Chance
A facility with such horrible history should not be allowed to reopen under the same management.
The news that Management & Training Corporation (MTC) plans on reopening its detention center to house immigrants for the Trump administration in Raymondvil...Read More
Loon Star: Due Process
Ben Sargent on family separation and immigrant detention.
Ben Sargent To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section, or find Observer political reporting here....Read More
The Trump Administration Deported up to 12 Parents Without Their Very Young Children
A hearing in federal court Monday gave a clearer picture of which parents will be reunited with their kids under 5 years old, as well as those who might never be.
As a lawsuit over reunification of immigrant families separated at the border plays out in federal court, the Trump administration on Monday gave us a first gli...Read More
What We Owe to the Children Ripped from Their Parents at the Border
Researchers have called “adverse childhood experiences” the single most powerful factor in health, social and economic well-being, a hidden epidemic more damaging than cancer or heart disease.
When my oldest child, Bryce, was a toddler, I lost him on an elevator. I was very pregnant with my next baby. As we headed for our hotel room with stroller and ...Read More
ICE Criminal Investigators Ask to Be Distanced from Detentions, Deportations in Letter to Kirstjen Nielsen
Nearly 20 ICE regional supervisors say the agency’s controversial detention and deportation policies have made it hard for them to conduct investigations into threats to national security.
A majority of ICE’s top criminal investigation agents are asking Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to spin their division off from the agency. In a...Read More
New 1,000-Bed ICE Lockup Set to Open on Site of Notorious ‘Tent City’ in South Texas
Willacy County officials, ICE and a private prison company are set to ink a new deal within days that would resurrect one of the nation’s most troubled immigrant detention centers.
New 1,000-Bed ICE Lockup Set to Open on Site of Notorious ‘Tent City’ in South Texas Willacy County officials, ICE and a private prison company are set to i...Read More
Williamson County Votes to End Contract with Detention Facility Holding Separated Mothers
In the face of activist pressure, commissioners voted to end the county’s involvement in the incarceration of immigrant mothers and women at the 512-bed T. Don Hutto Detention Facility.
In a victory for immigrant advocates in a conservative, law-and-order community, the Williamson County Commissioners Court on Tuesday voted to cut ties with a d...Read More
As a Pediatrician, I Know There’s No Way to Jail Migrant Families Without Hurting Kids
If we really care about migrant kids, we can’t stop at ending the obvious atrocity of family separation at the border.
In my daily life as a pediatrician, I sometimes care for kids who have been removed from their homes — just the day before, or even that same day — by Child...Read More
Despite Trump’s Executive Order, This Mom Still Doesn’t Know if She’ll See Her 3 Kids Again
“Every minute that I am separated from my kids is anguish,” says a Guatemalan mom who’s been apart from her kids for more than a month and isn’t even sure where they are.
A Guatemalan mother and her three children had already spent two weeks in a for-profit family detention center in South Texas when U.S. immigration authorities ...Read More