Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for Tuesday, January twentieth, twenty twenty six. I am Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the Texas Tribune, joined as usual by Eleanor Klebanoff. Hello, Eleanor, Hello Matthew. How are you doing well? Just got back late last night from a family trip to New York City.
Oh fun, where it snowed.
The entire time we were there. Is my daughter's thirteenth birthday, So nice.
Were your Texas kids very freaked out by the snow?
They loved it. We walked through Central Park in like a driving snowstorm, and they followed from behind me like ten feet the entire time, pelting me with snow like the entire the dream walk.
So yeah, it was great.
Every thirteen year old's birthday, wish.
That's right, yeah, right. This week we are going to be talking about immigration enforcement in ice in Texas, and we are joined by two guests to discuss that. First from the Texas Tribune making her trip cast debut, Houston based reporter Colleen de Guzman. Hello, Colleen, Hello, it's good to be here. We are excited to have you, and we also have a Houston based although currently located in San Antonio, immigration attorney Paul Pirella.
Hey, Paul, Hi, thank you, Thank you for having me.
Yes, thank you for being here. So, like I said, we are going to be talking about immigration here. Of course, for years and especially during the Biden administration, the Texas Mexico border has sort of been the focal point of
our federal immigration conversation. But we are now in year two of the second Trump administration, and during the first year, the nation's eye kind of turned a little bit more toward the interior, right, A lot of things have slowed down at the border, and a lot of the action, a lot of the tension, at least in the national media has been in places like La Portland, Minneapolis, things
like that. But Texas has remained a hotbed of immigration enforcement and activity, the Houston area being one of the most active places for ice arrests in the country. And so today we're going to talk a little bit about just sort of what's happening in Texas, how does it compare to the rest of the country, and what is the experience, you know, on the ground for people living
through this every day. Paul, I want to start with you, and before we sort of talk about you know, ice and everything like that, I want to just talk ask just sort of about your role in this work. You are an immigration attorney. You you know, work with clients I know. But tell me kind of what your job has been this past year in this sort of new era of immigration enforcement.
Of course, no, and thank you. So we have a small immigration firm in southwest Houston. It's just two attorneys, me in an associate whose name is Carlos Gutierres, and basically we do primarily we do immigration court work, so deportation defense, and we also do a lot of family based immigration with a little bit of employment based like visas and things sprinkled in. So what I can tell you is that in the last year we have had quite a big uptick in immigration enforcement basically defense work.
So there's been a lot more cases involving detainees and a lot more cases of people getting sent to court and then we defend them in removal proceedings. I can tell you to talk about numbers, like I used to do maybe one or two detainee cases a month, and then in the last few months it's been basically more than one call a day from some by asking for a consultation because they have a family member or friend or somebody's being detained.
So I can speak actually quite a lot about that. Okay, very good.
So let's now let's take a step back and just talk about what Texas is experiencing. Colleen, you had a story that ran I believed yesterday kind of laying out the groundwork here. What has immigration enforcement in Texas looked like over this past year.
Yeah, so the Trump administration, as we've seen in Texas is basically going all in on slowing down both do process for immigration and then also going all in on finding and documented immigrants within the country and within the state, already resting and deporting them. And like you said, what's different from his first term is that this year and this last year that we've seen is that they're really focusing on finding people at their work sites immigration where
it's parking lots, and their homes. People have reported seeing ICE agents at federal buildings in Olpaso, immigration courthouses in San Antonio, and probation offices in Dallas. And so what we've really seen is that you know, they're looking everywhere for undocumented immigrants. And it's caused this huge wave of this new fear among undocumented immigrants across.
The state, right, Paul, I mean, does that align with sort of the clients you've been hearing from, is it? I think one of the things that we sort of have understood about immigration enforcement in recent years, particularly under the Biden administration, but even maybe before that, is you would see a lot of things, you know, ice attentions
and local jails and things like that. Are you seeing more people who are being picked up, you know, at their place of work or you know, having ice knock on their doors or or or that type of enforcement.
Yes, I am.
Unfortunately, so we've had a couple in the last month, well several in the last month. Well, one of the things that was a major change for me is that we had people picked up at checkpoints, you know, between here San Antonio and the border. Let's say Brownsville or McCallan.
There's some checkpoints about about one hundred miles from the border, and in the past, people let's say, with pending cases that had entered on visas, that had applied for asylum, they were usually allowed to cross freely through those checkpoints as long as they don't cross outside of the United States while they're waiting for the case to be adjudicated by either USCIS or by the immigration courts, as long
as they had status. And there's been even people in that case with absolutely no criminal history picked up at the checkpoints. I had a console with a person from Minnesota actually last Friday, where they showed me pictures of their truck and it has the glasses Saturday in. We're
still trying to find out more information about that. But what the people that were witnessed to the event said that happened was that ICE came in and broke broke the dential clients windows and drag them out of his car.
So that's very unfortunate.
I can also say that I've seen, even though I've seen it less, I've seen people being dragged out of court. In one case in Dallas, Texas a few months ago, I think in the end of November, there was It wasn't one of my clients, but I was there in Dallas with the client in the courthouse in downtown and the ICE agents would wait until after the hearing was over, and then they took several people in front of me, in front of women in front of children.
People were crying.
It's one of the most I guess, horrible things that I've seen in my practice.
You know.
I feel like, and you're sort of alluding to this that during previous administrations, even previous Republican administrations, the focus was really on like part of the reason there was this partnership with the jails was people who were you know, alleged criminals or people who were you know, we would hear these sort of horror stories of you know, undocumented immigrants who were accused of really you know, horrific crimes and saying, you know, we need to deport those people
because they're you know, their primary crime was being here, you know, without documentation. Their primary crime was something else. Now it feels like with these street raids and showing up at you know, even court hearings where people are there because of their documentation status, not because of their other crimes. That's a real pivot. I mean, Colleen, what are we hearing from like elected officials from the Trump administrations or talking about that shift.
From public officials from politictions. MM. So there's been frustration about how the Trump administration is basically making these moves
and decisions without much approval from anyone. For example, earlier last year, the Trump admission, the Trump administration made two really big steps and basically forcing a bottleneck at federal detention centers and courthouses, like about one hundred immigration judges left voluntarily or forcibly from their benches last year, and many were fired by the Trump administration, basically slowing down the process of immigrants going through their legal process. And
I'm sure Paul, you could talk about this part. And he also barred migrants from accessing bond hearings, and that basically means that all detained migrants have to stay in detention centers for the duration of their removal proceedings now, and that basically removes judges from being involved in whether an immigrant has to be detained. And an expert told me that that basically makes ice both the jailer and the judge, since there's no longer a review of migrants detention.
Well, can you help me I kind of understand. I mean what you have said at the start of this about you know, one to two cases a month turning into you know, basically getting a phone call almost every day from from clients aligns with you know what we hear from a lot of immigration attorneys. You know, the ability of people to find pro bono work is incredibly hard. Right now, the all the sort of immigration bar reports being the sort of you know, swamped with cases right now.
I'm going to quote a line from Colleen's story here, which is said, daily irs in Texas have jumped from an average of eighty five per day during the final eighteen months of the Biden administration to one hundred and seventy six per day in the first six months under Trump. We're talking about a double a doubling essentially, But what you were sort of describing sounds like far more than a doubling of calls from people sort of workware services.
Can you help me understand, like, what's is there something else going on here? Like what is it? What is it that's happening with you in your office and the experience of people reaching out to lawyers that's causing this to be such a dramatic increase.
Yeah, and Colleen actually alluded to it right now. It's the ability to get an immigration bond. So there are two specific cases that came out from the Board of Immigration Appeals last year. A matter of q Lee was around May, and then matter of Yehudetdo was in September. But the effect of those cases was that if you did not come in with a visa, so not through a parole, through CBP, one through the border, and definitely
not if you entered without inspection. If you did not comment with a visa, you can't get an immigration bond. The EOIR, which is the immigration courts, the Executive Office of Immigration Review, has basically held or they received instructions from the Chief of Immigration judge saying that they don't
have jurisdiction to hear bond cases. So in the past, when somebody would go to a nice check in, there was really minimal risk of being detained if they didn't have a criminal history, because if they were detained, they could get a bond and still be able to fight out the case outside. What's happened with this has been that drastic change in law. It's been litigated in California
also here in Texas. But because of that, so if you go and then that's for one and then the second the things that you guys said about where the
arrests take place has increased highly. I think the number of immigrants that are detained here in Texas, and a lot of people basically in the face of that, they get scared, and a lot of people are also foregoing the rights, kind of like Colleen mussaying, because it is sort of an infringement and due process that somebody with very strong criminal accusations, maybe even you know, aggravated assault or murder will most of the time be able to at least apply for a bond hearing in front of
a judge, while an immigrant that came in without an inspection, now the immigration just says, I won't even hear the case.
I don't have jurisdiction.
So I think that that is the major driving factor on why we're seeing the uptick. And also I think
it's a premeditated strategy, because I believe. I mean, I can tell you a lot of stories that I don't want to ramble, but I've had It's happened several times where a family who entered through the border under one of these Biden programs, whether it be CDP WANT or whether Baffley that's pending a case before the immigration court, they show up to a nice check in and they detain the wife and not the husband, or they detained the husband and not the wife, and we think, what's
the reasoning behind that is we believe that it's the administration is pressuring people to give up on their case and to leave, and that's something I don't think is right, and.
Experts have told me that that's also seen in how arrests are up and detention centers meanwhile, are already overcrowded and understaffed. And in Texas, detention centers have been a big focus lately because the newest and biggest detention center called Camp East Montana in Fort Bliss, has had three deaths in the last two months, and the most recent death was of a thirty six year old man from Nicaragua.
His name is Victor, and he was detained in Minneapolis, and I says his death was a presumed suicide, but that's still under investigation. And one of the cases that really put attention on how people end up dying in
ice custody is the case of Heraldo Luna Scampos. He was fifty five and he's Cuban, and initially, when he died on January third, Ice characterized his death as a medical distress, but the Washington Post recently published a story about how the family is saying that the El Paso Medical Examiner is saying that preliminary reports on his death show that he may have died because of a homicide, that he wasn't able to breathe because something was like
choking him. But the autopsy, the official autopsy, has not been reported yet. But days after that story, the AP report did that Ice is now claiming that his death was a suicide attempt. But a detainee who witnessed the death in the camp said that he died while his hands were handcuffed. And so the big question is if is is saying that he died because of a suicide attempt,
how did he do that while he was handcuffed? And so we're still waiting on that official autopsy report from the medical examiner to see whether he died because of a homicide or suicide. But it's really calling attention to the conditions at this new camp. It's called Camp East Camp East Montana, and it's in El Paso, and it's not really a center. It's this huge, like sprawling tent where you know, that's kind of mostly how I prefers to have these detention centers.
And and you know, I know that there's also you know, a center in Harlingen as well. I mean, Paul, what are you do you have clients who are you know, passing through these areas. Have you heard at all about you know, what the experience of people in these facilities is.
Yeah, I've had I have several clients.
Now we actually have a client that is in East Fontana, also imported Isabelle that's down south near Harlingen, in Carnes, south of San Antonio, and the several ones that are north of Houston, Livingston and Conro.
And you know, we receive different reports.
You know, we have some clients saying that they're treated badly, others that they're treated well.
And in essence, I think that the biggest thing is.
Yeah, in essence, the biggest thing, I think it's the time that it takes them to fight the case, maybe months that they spend in detention, even for the cases that we have one where they're ultimately released.
I think that's also you know, a pretty huge concern.
Okay, what about just like the experience of immigrants in Texas right now? You know, I mean, there are the people are who are in these facilities, there are people who being picked up. I mean when you talk to just folks, whether it's Calleen and your reporting or Paul and your legal work, I mean, where are you hearing from? You know what it's like to be a part of these communities right now.
And that's also very sad. I can add to that.
I heard a comment which is the first time I've heard it in you well ever, I think my family is originally from Venezuela. I was born in Madcaigro when I grew up here in Houston, and then I hear a lot of the Venezuelan's clients saying that this reminds me of Venezuela. That the things that they see on the news about the ice rays armed civilians is what they would call like a group that has done a
lot of harm. Of course it's a different situation, but still it's like the fear that people live with knowing that, look, if I'm trying to follow the rules, I'm following my case, I'm attending their hearings, the or I'm just going to work the fear that they live in by just doing, you know, going about their everyday life is something that's big and yeah, it is affecting a lot of people.
So I think there's an increased fear. Even for the people, let's say they have been granted asylum or that have green cards. They call me and asked me, is it safe for me to travel because I don't want to risk my future here in the US one they've already won their case, and I think, yeah, So that's what we've been hearing a lot about lately.
Just out of curiosity. What are you saying to those clients when they ask you this question.
So it depends on the case.
Specifically for people that have already won their case, what I usually tell them is that you carry copies of certain documents with you to show. I have had several clients that already want asylum get picked up and then released the next day, So that is happy, you know, but it's basically so that they're able to show an officer exactly, you know, where their status is. We've also saw a video the other day of a Cuban immigrant that already had his green card have an interaction with
ICE who tells him he's not in the system. He's getting picked up, and once he shows him the green card, they let him leave. So for those people you know that don't have any criminal charges that whether there's not a risk, I usually give them advice around that, but I would you know, it's that Night Taylor, case by case specifically for people that might be at more risk of detention.
Yeah, And the Trump administration is you know, for people with green cards and asylum and asylum seekers, it's about making it difficult to live here because, for example, he recently said that people who are DOC recipients or asylum in the asylum process can no longer renew their com commercial driver's license, and so that's really going to rattle the trucking and trade industry. And for students, DOCA recipients
can no longer access in state tuition. And so it's like policies like this that you know, it's pushing people into hiding even though they have tps or are asylum seekers or DOC recipients. Everyone you know is fearful and worried.
What are you hearing, Colleen about, you know, from the Trump administration, from government officials about you know, is you know, when people raise these concerns, what's the reaction to that.
I think it's been such a mutual this year that I was trying to do a story at the end of the year, trying to reach out to people from the nineteen countries with travel bands because people from those nineteen countries can no longer move forward in their legal process, their cases were being paused. And so I live in Houston, and I was certain that I would find someone who would be able to speak to me from one of
those nineteen countries about their case. And Paul, I even asked you so many times to see if you could connect me to someone, and no one wanted to talk to me at all. And so I think politicians are, depending on where they're at, are usually where they don't want to speak about it, except for Mayor John Whitmeyer, who in Houston talked earlier about how he's working that that Houston, the Houston Police Department is collaborating with ICE
to place ICE detainers on people at the jail. But it's been it's been quiet.
I think, Like I mean, I've certainly read stories, I mean some in the Tribune, but also generally about just you know, the Trump administration early on sort of undid the protections that said like that limited the arrests of immigrants in sensitive locations schools, churches, hospitals. So I think a lot of this is sort of part of the plan.
I think, like, while there's been some blowback to some of these policies, that generally speaking, like when we hear stories of immigrant communities where people are not going to church, or they're not seeking out medical care, or they're worried about sending their kids to school or travel too the grocery store. Like, I think the optics of these street raids and things like that are sort of serving the
purposes of the administration. You know, the administration at least currently is like on board with how that is played.
Right, the idea of making the country a less hospitable place for people to come, you know, without authorization in order to come, right, And if that's the goal, then some of that uncertainty, some of that feeling of you can't travel and all those things is further accomplishing that goal.
Right.
I think the political question that we will get some insight into, you know, this year, but probably not fully until the next presidential election, is, you know, how is that, you know, how unpopular are these policies. You know, I think that there's a lot of people who particularly among like Latino voters, who have swung pretty strongly towards President Trump in the twenty twenty four election.
You know, is this.
Blowing up in Republicans faces or is it not? As you know, people are very outraged about it.
Is it going to affect how they vote?
Yeah?
I mean, Colleen, it's been interesting, just as you mentioned Mayor John Whitmyer and Houston an area. You know, he is a of course a Democrat elected to a nonpartisan office, but in a city that has at least in recent elections voted democratically. You know, that's that's been an interesting political topic to watch in that city in particular.
Mm hm. And you know, Houston was home to one of the first big raids of the Trump administration. I think January or February there was a huge raid in Colony Ridge, which is a huge neighborhood outside of Houston where you know a lot of Latinos live, and so you know, there's outrage here in Houston, but there's also
on the local level a sense of cooperation. Houston Police Department is working alongside ice and John Whitmeyer is not, you know, in the way of that, and the state is also not in the way that the state is collaborating with ICE as well, and so that's kind of put Houston in a different position than other more blue states at cities.
Paul.
I mean the other thing that has, of course come up. You mentioned the client in Minnesota who had their windows broken. Of course, Minnesota has become, you know, a powder keg in this world, and you know a lot of concerns there and in other places about you know, people ICE agents wearing masks, behaving very aggressively in their raids and
things like that. I feel like, you know, there have been protests against that in places like Houston other Texas cities, but I feel like we are hearing fewer stories of that kind of behavior in Texas. Is that because it's not happening as much here? Is it because for another reason? I mean, are those are you seeing signs of those tactics here in Texas? I guess is a better way of putting that question.
I haven't seen anybody like like the store in Minnesota where they're dragged out of their car where it's broken into. But we have heard stories of like bounty counters, especially in the area north of Texas called the datos Houston. I think it's what they are used to call where they're basically patrolling their people with masks and stuff that will end up, like you know, catching somebody that they think might be an immigrant without status and bringing them ties.
But the majority of the rest that I'm seeing is in Houston is at the jails, you know, after the ice attainers, it's crossing the vorder checkpoints whenever people are traveling from Houston. Like I said, many people not knowing that they're at risk at all because they have permission to be here, they have work permits, driver's licenses, they travel from Houston to the border or back. They're being
detained there and at ICE check ins. So I think with that, I mean, I think that that's the vast majority of the arrests that I see around here in Texas.
And then at the courts.
It was funny one of you mentioned San Antonio earlier today where I am now, and then I just had my friend just showed me the ICE bus that's outside that the San Antonio Demigration court that's here in downtown, and then where you can see it visibly, it's parked outside. It's a big white bus. And then Unfortunately, that is something that is still going on.
Yeah, two stats, calling from your story. These are national stats, not just in Texas, but under the Biden administration, eighty percent of ICE arrests came from county jails, in federal
and state prisons. Under Trump, that number has dropped to sixty four point one, right, which would indicate that a higher percentage of the arrest and of course we know that the arrests have increased significantly have come from you know, outside the criminal justice system, outside that you know, going after people who have already been arrested, or you know, are alleged to be criminals, or any of those types
of things. Similarly, this is actually a Texas stat. Fifty eight percent of people ICE arrested under Biden had criminal convictions, compared to forty two percent under Trump. So that another kind of piece of ten.
Half of the people who are being arrested now have crimes other than immigration offenses.
And I wrote a story earlier this last or last year about how, you know, the victims of criminal cases are being deported Meanwhile the person who you know did the crime is able to stay and experience due process. And so it was just like a sign of the times.
I think like part of the goal I think explicitly in many cases of the Trump administration is to get people to self deport, to just leave the country. Paul and Colleen, are you guys hearing from people that are taking that option? Is that you know, having that ripple effect?
Yeah, I think it is.
I can speak to my practice, you know, a lot of the times, the first thing we do when someone calls us to do a consult where we try to speak to the family of the person detained, and often they will ask us to speak to the client. We do a confidential call with the metic Detention Center before we ever move on with the case.
And then a lot of the people are hearing.
Once they hear I don't have well that the government takes a position, I don't have a right to an immigration bond. If I'm going to fight my case, I might be here months. If I appeal, I could be here more than a year. Then a lot of people are then taking the decision to self deport and try to go somewhere else. I've had several Cuban clients that chose not to fight their case be removed to Mexico and then from there try to seek asylum in Spain or in other places. So I think it is implicit
that that's basically the strategy that they're doing. I think, like the Eleanor said, it's the optics, you know, if the news well, basically, if all these things are done, the raids, people have feared to even cross the border. The number of crossings with that inspection has dropped to, you know, numbers that we haven't seen in fifty years. So people are not coming in, and then the ones that are here, that came in in the last few years, even that been here for a long time, are scared.
And some people have decided, you know, I went to USCIS, my asylum case might have not got approved. I do have a right to go before an immigration judge and seek it. But I've also seen a lot of those people decide, like, no, let me go try to seek asylum somewhere else because they don't want to be at risk of being detained and then sent back to Venezuela, to Columbia, to Afghanistan and those things.
Yeah, and Udiel, my colleague who's on parental right now. Before he left, he did a really great story on a mother who was detained and her and her husband
left Belize because of some death threats. And they've been in the country for a long time, and they have children who mixed status citizenship, and she was at a detention center and contracted hepatitis there and so it just showed how you know, she and they gave for tail and all I believe for it, and so it just got so difficult there that she decided to self deport and her husband ended up following her and they had to leave their children here. So they're back in Belize
right now. And it's just an example of how people are being pushed to self deport. That's the goal, it seems for Ice. In the Trump administration.
There's another strategy that I wanted to mention to piggyback off of that, and it's it's the removals to third countries. I don't know if you guys have heard about that in the news, but the Trump administration has also signed several agreements and among those Acudor Duras Guatemala, where.
Like they will get well.
Basically, the crux of the agreement is if you're applying for asylum here right then you came in through the Southern border on most of them that if you do not fear persecution in the third country which you might have never been to, we can for go having to even hear your silent case. So I've had that happened already twice for on Dudas, and it's happening now more for Ecuador with somebody from Venezuela or Nikadaigua, for example.
It's one of the cases that we're appealing where he has a very strong as silent case.
He was in the news his home. He was in the news that his home.
Was ransacked by the National Police or by the Pillar paramilitaries. I'm sorry, and he had a lot of publications proof of being a student organizer protest, and then the judge didn't here is the silent case because DHS wanted to remove him to on Doudas, where he has never been
and cannot prove that he will be persecuted there. So we're appealing the legality of these agreements, and it's something that's going on, but also that I guess the fear of getting sent to a place I've never been before is also being used against the asylum seeker to sort of persuade them to give up on the claim to and I think they've even said publicly, and I wouldn't quote that because I don't remember the exact words that they have to do some like the Trump administration that
said that they have to do something about the backlog of all these cases of immigration court, which was about four million, so like we can't give everybody doing process. I remember hearing that in the news, but that was the crux of what they said. So I think it is being done deliberately and that these things are done so well that in essence, it's it's basically taking away a lot of the protections that people have, especially those that are seeking aside.
Well, I know it's hard to speak in too much generalities because every client is different. Every client has individual circumstances and factors that are you know, leading to the
decisions that they make. But I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the the decision making process, the factors that people are having to consider, and just you know, seems sort of obvious, but just the life impact of being caught up in this system is having on the people you're working with, Like what are you seeing, how are you seeing people sort of experience this from the sort of most human level.
Yeah, I think it's something that's it's really sad, really, especially whenever it comes to the detentions without bond, because in the past, you know, if a family member was detained, even if they came in with that inspection, like I mentioned, they could most of the time get a bond if they weren't a flight risk, weren't a danger to a community, were a threat to public safety. And then now what happens is I have to have a conversation with that.
I've had many times with a mother that the children are US citizens at home, maybe the mother does not have status, or the spouse might have status, and they detained the husband, the father, and now you say, well, look there's a chance of him getting out, but it will take a federal lawsuit if he fights his case, you know, which he might have a case to fight. Maybe a cancelation will remover or one of these other
benefits that it will be months in jail. You know, that's something that affects them terribly because maybe the primary provider is now detained, and how are they supposed to provide for the family, for the kids to pay rent to buy grown trees and then so that really puts
a lot of pressure on people. Have also seen people on the human aspect that have built businesses, that have stores, have construction companies, have a small businesses and contribute to the economy of not only Houston, but like of the country. And then now who's going to run the business where or like another person that you know whose workers are scared to come to work because they're scared the ice is going to come, you know, like do a raid at a construction sete.
You know.
So it's it's really affecting people a lot. So in the decision making process, they basically have to weigh and I feel like it's my job to inform them before you start, this is what we're getting into. And then so that they're informed about whether or not I choose to fight the case or not. And if you're going to fight it, then you have to fight it with
everything you got. And if you choose not to that the best thing for my family is is to leave, then that's the decision that I have to respect from the people that make it, you know, from the families that are affected.
All right, well, Pirella, I know you are very busy. You you showed us that at the at the beginning of this Thank you so much for taking the time to talk us through this and share your experiences UH And a big thank you as well to you Colleen UH for for your coverage and for talking this through eleanor great talking with you as talk to.
You next week.
And a big thank you to our producers Rob and Chris. We will be back next week.
M