Welcome back to ICE Watch. It's been a little over a month since I wrote last. A lot has happened since our edition on the master plan to fill ICE warehouses (and more since we highlighted women on the front lines of the ICE resistance). While our attention has been bounced between a war and data centers no one wants, increasing encroachment on our privacy, dismantling of our public services, gutting of our voting rights, the erosion of academic freedom, and the pivot away from science as the basis for sound environmental, health, and economic policy, one monumental piece of legislation has loomed over the heads and hearts of many Texans: SB4.
Grab your tea, coffee, Zoloft, or emotional support pet, and read on to learn more about how this hacienda novela unfolds. The once-blocked effort by Governor Abbott and crew to turn Texas into a massive immigration force on top of all those federal agencies is paused, albeit partially and temporarily. Read deeper for details. —Roxana Rojas
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Judge Allows State of Texas to Take on More Immigration Duties
We have seen domestic violence victims targeted for immigration enforcement when calling for help. We've seen high schoolers getting sent to detention days before graduation for expired tags. We have seen terminally ill U.S. citizens make a life-threatening trip to Mexico to see their deported parents as their last dying wish. We have seen children waiting for the school bus get picked up and thrown into detention camps.
All of this under the guise of public safety, law, and order. Meanwhile the sick are not making it to their doctor’s appointments out of fear of getting detained because of the mandatory question health-care provider offices now have to ask in Texas: “What is your legal status?”
Meanwhile in the state with some of the highest domestic violence rates, people are not making the calls for help. Meanwhile DPS is stretched thin to respond to events such as highway car accidents because of its new marching orders to enforce immigration law. This is not making our state or our country safer. Clearly, there's much evidence to the contrary.