With the anticipation that Texas will likely assist with major deportation efforts suggested by the incoming administration, a civil rights organization has been getting ready for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
According to the Associated Press, Trump has 100 executive orders scheduled for the first day of his second term in office, the most of which prioritize border security and deportations. According to the National Immigration Law Center, Trump’s government carried out workplace raids during his first term that had an effect on employers, workers, and communities.
Certain locations, including as schools, hospitals, and houses of worship, are generally shielded from raids, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Some groups are nonetheless getting ready to defend their towns in spite of this. An online Spanish-language Mass for churchgoers was covered by the local Chicago ABC news station.
People in the United States who do not have legal status nevertheless retain rights, according to Edgar Saldivar, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.
According to him, immigration status is included in educational records. Parents can refuse to give their approval for those records. Those records are only accessible by subpoena or court order. Even in educational settings, we are still protected against arbitrary searches and seizures by the Fourth Amendment.
According to legal precedence, states are not allowed to deny kids free public education because of their immigrant status, Saldivar continued.
According to the ACLU, 287(g) agreements may potentially proliferate. Depending on the model a local county chooses to adopt, the program enables local law enforcement to identify and process removable non-citizens who have been arrested and have criminal or pending criminal charges, or it permits ICE to train, certify, and authorize them to serve and execute warrants on non-citizens in their agency’s jail. Chambers, Galveston, Montgomery, Walker, Waller, and Wharton are among the counties in the Houston area that have a 287(g) agreement.
In September, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against ICE over documents pertaining to a possible increase of immigrant detention. ICE is actively investigating suggestions to increase its incarceration capacity in eight states, including Texas, according to papers made public by the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday.
“The incoming administration’s brutal mass deportation plans are made possible by the expansion of detention facilities in our communities, all for the benefit of private prison corporations,” said Savannah Kumar, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, in a statement. History should teach us that, regardless of our position behind bars, increasing the number of inhumane detention centers at the expense of essential community needs robs everyone of their freedom.