Browse Stories in immigration

Replay video: Project Lifeline hosted a panel and community discussion and interactive event, "Immigrant Children, Detention Without End?" on Friday, Sept. 28, in the Student Engagement Ballroom at the University of the Incarnate Word. Each year, as many as 90,000 immigrant children spend time in U.S. detention centers. Those who monitor the conditions say the children often are kept for months at a time in unsanitary conditions without proper medical care and are denied food and clean water. Recent proposals could make their stay in detention indefinite.

“It was painful how hungry we were.” “I begged for water for my daughter but the officials wouldn’t give her any.” “The temperature was extremely cold. Children were crying all the time. Human heat was not enough to warm the babies.” Each year in U.S. immigration detention facilities, 90,000 children are systematically deprived of food, water and basic medical care, and exposed to extreme temperatures and unsanitary conditions.

The current administration has terminated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of six countries, and over the coming months the Administration will continue to make decisions about TPS designations for four additional countries. In response to the recent terminations, several non-profit organizations have filed lawsuits on behalf of TPS holders challenging the termination of TPS.

By Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post A federal judge in San Diego on Tuesday barred the separation of migrant children from their parents and ordered immigration officials to reunify within 30 days families that have been divided as a result of a zero-tolerance policy enforced by the Trump administration until last week. Judge Dana Sabraw of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California granted a preliminary injunction sought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller said the separation of immigrant families at the border "is immoral, is evil, is sinful." His remarks came at the COPS/Metro Alliance Assembly on June 18, 2018, at Our Lady of the Lake University. "To use children as pawns to deter people from coming is inhuman and shows the decadence that we are in, in our country," he said.

By Michael E. Miller, The Washington Post   "‘They just took them?’ Frantic parents separated from their kids fill courts on the border" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

To see and feel the anguish of a Syrian child refugee, look no further than the Portraits of Compassion exhibit on the walls of the banquet hall at San Antonio’s Trinity Baptist Church, on view until the end of April 2018. The painting, titled “...the least of these...,” is a hauntingly poignant portrait of a Syrian child. His eyes beseech us, in their sad determined gaze, to seek our humanity, wondering what went wrong.

By Julián Aguilar, The Texas Tribune Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout. A panel of three 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges ruled Tuesday that most of the state’s immigration enforcement legislation, Senate Bill 4, can remain in effect while the case plays out, handing a victory to Gov. Greg Abbott and Republican supporters of the law.

Elected leaders and pro-immigrant groups came together on the steps of San Antonio City Hall on March 14, 2018 and vowed to keep fighting the anti-immigrant law, SB 4 one day after judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld most of the Texas law. (scroll down to watch complete video of the 30-minute event)

by Giulia Afiune, The Texas Tribune Update: Rosa Maria Hernandez was released to her parents the afternoon of Nov. 3. More in this story from KSAT-12 news  and this story from Univision.