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I believe that the current refugees in America are being treated nicely from the last I seen refugees were being given hotels, food, water and clothes.

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US: Texas Targeting Migrants | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)

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(Washington, DC) - Texas has arrested more than 1,500 migrants since March 2021 under a discriminatory and abusive operation that targets suspected migrants for arrest, prosecution, and incarceration on state misdemeanor offenses, Human Rights Watch said today. The United States Justice Department should act swiftly to stop this program.

Operation Lone Star, initiated by Governor Greg Abbott, is based on a xenophobic narrative that associates migrants with crime and insecurity. Its aim is to "confront ... the crisis at the southern border," due to migration. Thousands of members of the Texas National Guard, an element of the US military reserve, and Texas state police have been deployed to deter and detain migrants along the US-Mexico border.

"Operation Lone Star has led to serious due process and civil rights abuses, made a mockery of the Texas judicial system, and fomented dangerous xenophobia," said Nicole Austin-Hillery, US Program executive director at Human Rights Watch. "The Justice Department should urgently investigate and take all available measures to stop these abuses and ensure accountability for violations of migrants' rights."

The policy has led to Texas law enforcement officials arresting migrants on false allegations of low-level trespassing violations or inducing migrants to step on private property, then arresting them. Those arrested have been imprisoned, in several cases in abusive conditions, for weeks or months without charges or access to attorneys. The vast majority of charges have ended up being dropped or dismissed. The operation has increased the state's pretrial detention population, undermining criminal legal system reforms.

The use of some 2,500 members of the Texas National Guard to conduct arrests, a highly militarized response by a force that is not trained to conduct criminal law enforcement, raises serious human rights concerns, Human Rights Watch said. Neither National Guard members nor state police officers are authorized under federal law or properly trained to enforce federal immigration laws, and using state trespassing laws against border crossers appears to be a thinly veiled attempt by Texas to overstep this federal authority.

Many of the more than 1,500 migrants who have been arrested are asylum seekers who thought they had finally reached a place of safety. The arrests have been marked by frequent violations of due process rights. Only 3 percent of those charged have been convicted, and in all of those cases, the person had pleaded guilty.

Media reports indicate that some of the arrests under the operation were questionable, leading to charges against migrants being dropped or dismissed. For example, with Border Patrol collusion, police reportedly marched a group of 11 migrants onto private property and then arrested them for trespassing. In another case, a prosecutor said, body camera footage shows that state troopers standing in front of a gate onto private property stood aside as if to allow migrants to pass and then quickly arrested them for trespassing once they crossed the property line.

"Operation Lone Star appears designed to further criminalize Latinx, Black, and other immigrant communities by arresting and detaining them on trumped up charges that often fail to pass legal muster," said Carolina Canizales, of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. "The operation has led to unlawful activity by government and law enforcement on a systemic basis. The Department of Justice should act immediately to block the policy."

Many of those arrested have been held for weeks or months without having any charges filed against them and without bail, court hearings, or access to counsel. Attorneys told Human Rights Watch they have needed to file habeas petitions to get Texas officials to follow the law and release them. Additionally, Texas authorities have engaged in the discriminatory practice of detaining migrants in state prisons instead of local jails where people accused of a crime are normally held prior to sentencing.

Attorneys representing detained migrants said they are aware of at least six children who are currently imprisoned under the policy. Though Texas law permits trying 17-year-olds as adults, under US law, important special protections are supposed to apply to children who are unaccompanied migrants.

Attorneys also said their clients faced inhumane detention conditions, including food contaminated with feces or bugs, meals provided so infrequently that they lost weight, and a lack of access to recreation time outdoors for several days at a time. While detained, some have been compelled to sign official documents in English, which they could not understand, some of which falsely stated that the migrants had waived their right to an attorney, one Texas advocacy group reported.

Governor Abbott and his lieutenant governor have used alarmist, xenophobic messaging to justify the operation, including rhetoric that links migrants to criminal activity and insecurity, as well as claims of "invasion." In a June speech Abbott made clear that the policy's goal is to "begin the ... arrest process of people coming across the border" and that the state government aims to "have [migrants] prosecuted, to be put in jail, to stay in jail, to create an environment where people will choose they don't want to come across the border into the state of Texas ... it's not the red carpet that the federal administration rolled out."

Some of this rhetoric appears to have attracted militia groups - armed civilians who are attempting to conduct immigration enforcement with no oversight, accountability, or training. Immigrant rights organizations in Texas have expressed serious concern about the possibility of white supremacist violence. In 2019, after the El Paso Walmart shooting in which a man who said he wanted "to stop the Hispanic invasion of Texas" killed 23 people, nearly all of Mexican descent, Governor Abbott called for confronting "the rise of extremist groups and hateful ideologies." But his administration's rhetoric and actions are instead further fueling anti-immigrant hysteria.

"Texas has a history of exploiting anti-immigrant sentiments to carry out policies that attack migrants," said Claudia Muñoz, co-executive director at Grassroots Leadership based in Austin, Texas. "Operation Lone Star, a policy driven by racism, is the latest attempt to appeal to anti-immigrant extremism, placing border crossers and border communities at risk."

Some officials in Kinney County, one of two counties carrying out Operation Lone Star arrests so far, have appeared to endorse the presence in the county of these anti-immigrant militia groups, including "Patriots for America," according to media reports cited in a public information request by the American Civil Liberties Union-Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project.

The leader of "Patriots for America" has claimed it is coordinating with law enforcement. The Texas Department of Public Safety subsequently warned that it would pull resources from Kinney County if the militia group was allowed to operate there, and underscored that detentions of migrants by private citizens could constitute kidnapping.

Border communities have been subjected to abusive racial profiling for decades. Operation Lone Star gives state police and state military reserve more incentive and opportunity to do so, Human Rights Watch said.

"The Department of Justice is admirably defending reproductive freedom and voting rights in Texas but is disturbingly absent when it comes to these state abuses of migrants," Austin-Hillery said. "Texas' abusive treatment of migrants and asylum seekers demands urgent federal intervention."

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Texas has arrested more than 1,500 migrants since March 2021 under a discriminatory and abusive operation that targets suspected migrants for arrest, prosecution, and incarceration on state misdemeanor offenses.

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This brief was originally published on April 3, 2013. It has been updated with current information as of October 23, 2014. For a more recent version of this information, see "The Facts on Immigration Today: 2017 Edition."
Immigration has been a constant source of economic vitality and demographic dynamism throughout our nation's history. Immigrants are taxpayers, entrepreneurs, job creators, and consumers. But the immigration system is broken and in need of an overhaul. Although the U.S. border is now more secure than ever, decades of ever-increasing border and interior enforcement have exacerbated the dysfunction caused by rigid, out-of-date laws. Immigration reform that comprehensively addresses these systemic problems-including providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States-is supported by large swaths of Americans. Common-sense reform would restore public faith in the system and level the playing field for all Americans, while supercharging the economic benefits from our immigrant population.

Below are the latest and most essential facts about immigrants and immigration reform in our nation today. The facts are broken down into the following sections:

Today's immigrant population

Foreign-born population

Undocumented immigrant population

The undocumented population has stayed relatively stable, after declining slightly during the Great Recession. In 2000, there were an estimated 8.4 million undocumented people residing in the United States. This population peaked in 2007 at 12 million but saw a gradual decline during the Great Recession. In 2012, an estimated 11.7 million undocumented immigrants resided in the United States. Since then, the numbers have stabilized. By the end of 2012, there were approximately 11.2 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and that number remained constant into 2013 with 11.3 million undocumented immigrants.

People from Mexico account for a large part of the undocumented population living in the United States, but their share has diminished in recent years. In 2012, 6 million people-or 52 percent of the undocumented population-were from Mexico, down from the peak of 6.9 million-or 57 percent-in 2007.

Six states are home to the majority of the undocumented population. As of 2012,22 percent of the nation's undocumented population lives in California. Fifteen percent lives in Texas, 8 percent lives in Florida, 7 percent lives in New York, 4 percent lives in Illinois, and 4 percent lives in New Jersey.

The majority of undocumented immigrants are long-term residents, committed to living in the United States. In 2013, the median length of residence for unauthorized immigrants in the United States was 13 years, at least 5 years longer than it had been in 2003. Currently, 62 percent of undocumented immigrants have been living in the United States for 10 years or longer, and a full 88 percent have been living in the United States for five years or longer.

Many undocumented immigrants could be sponsored for a green card but cannot adjust their status because they are presently undocumented. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants could qualify for a green card by virtue of having a relative who is a U.S. citizen, but-because of bars to re-entering the United States that were put in place in 1996-most would have to leave the United States for a period of at least 10 years before becoming eligible to reunite with their families.

Undocumented immigrants are often part of the same family as documented immigrants. 16.6 million people were in "mixed-status" families-those with at least one undocumented immigrant-in 2011.Nine million of these families had at least one U.S.-born child.

Nearly half of the undocumented population has minor children, many of them born in the United States. In 2012, 4.7 million undocumented adults were parents of minor children, including 3.8 million whose children were U.S. citizens.

One in five undocumented immigrant adults has a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse. Of the 10 million adult undocumented immigrants living in the United States in 2012, approximately 767,000 were married to a U.S. citizen and 944,000 were married to a lawful permanent resident.

Undocumented immigrants comprise a disproportionately large percentage of the labor force relative to the size of the overall population. In 2010,8.4 million undocumented immigrants were employed in the United States. They represented 5.2 percent of the U.S. labor force, although they comprised only 3.7 percent of the U.S. population.

There are more than a quarter of a million LGBT undocumented adult immigrants in the United States today. The estimated 267,000 LGBT undocumented adult immigrants as of 2013 are more likely to be male and younger relative to all undocumented immigrants. Around 71 percent of LGBT undocumented adults are Hispanic, and 15 percent are Asian American or Pacific Islander.

Nearly half of settled undocumented immigrants are homeowners. Among undocumented immigrants who had lived in the United States for 10 years or longer, 45 percent were homeowners in 2008. Among undocumented immigrants who had lived in the United States for less than 10 years, 27 percent were homeowners in 2008.

More than half of the undocumented immigrant population has a high school degree or higher. According to a 2009 Pew Research Center's Hispanic Trends Project study, 52 percent of undocumented immigrants have a high school diploma or higher and 15 percent have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Demographics and political power of new Americans

Growing in number

Latinos and Asian Americans comprise a significant segment of the U.S. population. Latinos comprised 16.9 percent of the total U.S. population in 2012, while Asian Americans made up 5.1 percent of the population.

The Latino community is experiencing rapid rates of growth. The Latino community in the United States grew by 43 percent from 2000 to 2010, as well as by an additional 7 percent from 2010 to 2013. These numbers dwarf the growth of whites, whose population grew by 5.7 percent between 2000 and 2010 and 1.5 percent between 2010 and 2013.

Asians recently surpassed Latinos as the fastest-growing group of new immigrants to the United States. The Asian American population saw growth of 46 percent from 2000 to 2010 and growth of 10 percent from 2010 to 2013.

Immigrants and their children are rapidly becoming a larger share of the Latino electorate. Immigrants and their children made up 55 percent of eligible Latino voters in 2012, up from 49 percent in 1996.

Second-generation immigrants-children of immigrants-are the driving force behind the growth of the Latino electorate. Between 2012 and 2016, 3.3 million Latino citizens will turn 18 years old. Of these Latino citizens, 57 percent, or nearly 2 million, are the children of immigrants.

And growing in political power

Immigrants and the economy

The economic imperative for immigration reform

The record on immigrants and the economy

Undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in taxes annually. Households headed by unauthorized immigrants paid $10.6 billion in state and local taxes in 2010. This includes $1.2 billion in personal income taxes, $1.2 billion in property taxes, and more than $8 billion in sales and excise taxes. Immigrants-even legal immigrants-are barred from most social services, meaning that they pay to support benefits they cannot even receive.

Research shows that immigrants complement, rather than compete with, native-born American workers-even less-skilled workers. Research by renowned economists such as David Card, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Giovanni Peri, and Heidi Shierholz shows that American workers are not harmed by-and may even benefit from-immigration. This is because immigrants tend to complement the skillsets of American workers, thus helping them be more productive.

Immigration reform will not affect the unemployment rates of native-born Americans. The CBO estimates that during the 10-year period following passage of immigration reform, unemployment will increase by 0.1 percent. This small increase falls entirely upon the undocumented and is the short-term effect of growth in the labor force and of the labor market adjusting to undocumented workers positioning themselves to be productive for decades to come.

Taxes paid by legalized immigrants more than offset any use of social programs. The CBO found that increases in costs to social programs are modest and will be more than paid for by the tax contributions of immigrants. The increase in spending in Social Security and Medicare from 2024 through 2033, for example, will be $65 billion-just 4.4 percent of the total increase in tax revenue.

As Baby Boomers retire en masse over the next 20 years, immigrants will be crucial to fill these job openings and promote growth in the labor market. More than two-thirds of new entrants into the labor market will replace retiring workers. However, while 58.6 million new workers will be needed to fill these retirements, only 51.3 million native-born people are projected to enter the workforce, meaning that immigrants and their children will be crucial to filling the additional 7.3 million job openings while also furthering growth in the labor market.

The price of inaction and the cost of mass deportation

Inaction on immigration reform carries a heavy cost. Each day the House of Representatives fails to pass immigration reform costs the United States $37 million in missed tax revenue. As of October 2014, the House's inaction has cost more than $17.7 billion.

Maintaining the status quo is not revenue neutral. With only one-third of unauthorized immigrants working in the formal economy and contributing about $12 billion in payroll taxes each year, the United States loses around $20 billion in payroll tax revenue annually. This lost revenue would go a long way toward funding the retirement of Americans across the country.

The United States spends more on immigration and border enforcement annually than the annual gross domestic product of 80 countries. In fact, the United States now spends $3.5 billion more on immigration and border enforcement-a total of nearly $18 billion per year-than it does on all other federal law enforcement combined.

A self-deportation regime would cost our economy trillions of dollars. If all undocumented immigrants in the country were deported or "self-deported"-meaning they choose to leave the country because life is too difficult-the United States' cumulative GDP would suffer a hit of $2.6 trillion over 10 years.

Mass deportation of the undocumented immigrant population would cost billions of dollars. Deporting the entire undocumented population would cost $285 billion over a five-year period, including continued border and interior enforcement efforts. For that price, we could hire more than 1 million new public high school teachers and pay their salaries for five years.

It costs taxpayers more than $20,000 to carry out the deportation of a single individual. Apprehending, detaining, processing, and transporting one individual in the deportation process cost $23,482 in fiscal year 2008.

Federal immigration policy

The Senate's bipartisan immigration reform bill

In June 2013, the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill with a vote of 68 to 32. The Senate bill remains viable for reconciliation with a House bill until the 113th Congress ends on December 31, 2014.

House's immigration legislation

House Republican leaders put out a set of principles on immigration reform in January 2014 but have not brought any immigration bills to the floor. This list included an endorsement of legalization for the 11.3 million undocumented immigrants living in the country but stopped short of a full pathway to citizenship. One week after releasing these principles, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) walked them back, saying his party would not move forward on immigration until members of the House regained their trust that President Obama would enforce immigration laws. Despite of the House leadership's best efforts to bury reform in 2014, 30 House Republicans have come out in support of immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship.

House Democrats have introduced a version of the Senate-passed immigration reform bill, H.R. 15. The bill includes almost all parts of the Senate bill, substituting the border provisions with House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX)'s border security bill. In September 2014, the bill had 199 co-sponsors, but House Republican leadership refuses to bring it to a vote.

House Republicans have taken multiple votes to defund the Deferred Action Against Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. Instead of passing immigration reform, the House has voted to cut funding for the DACA program. The first of these attempts took place in June 2013, when Rep. Steve King (R-IA) successfully introduced an amendment to the Homeland Security budget bill to defund the program. House Republicans passed a similar measure in August 2014.

Administrative action and Supreme Court decisions

Building a 21st century border

Immigration enforcement is in overdrive

Public opinion polling on immigration

Americans want immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship

A majority of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. A June 2014 poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution found that 62 percent of Americans support an immigration bill that provides a way for undocumented immigrants to become citizens. An additional 17 percent said that they should be allowed to become legal residents, and just 19 percent said that they should be deported.

A majority of Americans believe it is imperative that Congress passes immigration reform by the end of 2014. A July 2014 poll conducted by CBS News found that 59 percent of Americans believe passing legislation that addresses unauthorized immigration is important, while only 6 percent of Americans thought it was not important at all.

Tea Party Republicans support a pathway to citizenship or legal status. A May 2014 poll by the Partnership for a New American Economy, Americans for Tax Reform, and the Tea Party Express revealed that 70 percent of Republican primary voters who identify with the Tea Party support a way for the undocumented to attain citizenship or legal status.

Voters in key Republican congressional districts support immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. July 2013Public Policy Polling surveys conducted in seven key congressional districts across California, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, and New York unequivocally show that Republican and independent voters want Congress to fix the country's broken immigration system. They also show that many of these voters are less likely to support Republicans if immigration reform stalls.

Americans support executive action on immigration. An ABC News poll conducted in August 2014 found that 52 percent of Americans support President Obama taking unilateral action on immigration reform if Congress does not act. Forty-four percent say he should not take any action.

Latino voters have a deep connection to immigration and want reform

Latino voters want immigration reform before the 2014 midterm elections. In a June 2014 poll, 71 percent of Latinos said that it is "very or extremely important" for Congress to pass immigration reform in 2014.

Latino voters have a direct and personal connection to the immigration debate. A June 2014 poll found that 62 percent of Latino voters personally know an undocumented immigrant. Of those people, 62 percent said that he or she is a friend or family member.

The children of immigrants feel a personal connection to the immigration issue. A 2014 analysis of Census Bureau data found that 68 percent of Latino children of immigrants-second-generation immigrants-have a family member or close friend who is undocumented. Moreover, 76 percent of second-generation immigrants say that it is "very or extremely important" for Congress and the president to address immigration reform this year.

A majority of Latinos would feel less favorable toward Republicans if Speaker Boehner does not allow immigration reform to come to a vote. A June 2014 poll showed that 74 percent of Latinos would feel "much or somewhat less" favorable to Republicans if the House does not allow the Senate-passed bill to move forward for a vote. The same poll found that Latinos will blame Republicans over Democrats by a 3-to-1 margin if immigration reform does not pass in 2014.

A majority of Latino voters would be more likely to support Republicans if the party supported immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. In a June 2014 poll, 53 percent of Latinos said that they would feel "much or somewhat more" favorable toward Republicans in Congress if Speaker Boehner allowed the Senate bill to move forward for a vote.

Immigration reform can serve as a gateway issue for Republicans and Latino voters. A June 2014 poll by Latino Decisions found that 61 percent of Latino voters would be more likely to listen to what the Republican Party has to say on other issues if Congressional Republicans support immigration reform and pass a bill that includes a pathway to citizenship.

In the news: Unaccompanied children at the U.S. southern border

Demographics and violence

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Everything you need to know about our foreign-born population, their impact on the economy, current immigration policy, and the voting power of new Americans.

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The US Treatment of Immigrants Is a Human Rights Crisis. It Has Been for Years. | SPH (bu.edu)

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It was a cold, gray day in March in McAllen, Texas. I was staffing a refugee/asylee clinic at the Catholic Charities respite center, a glamorized closet in the back of a receiving center. There had been a dramatic ice storm in the last fews days-uncommon in South Texas-and so the buses to carry families to their next destination were not running. There were tents set up to house the families-not something this center did very often, as it had only one bathroom and three showers-and so the facility felt crowded. But there was another feeling as well: an unmistakable air of hopelessness amongst the mostly mothers and children stuck in limbo.

One mother in particular stays with me. She was from Eritrea, an African nation under totalitarian rule accused of extensive human rights violations, and had traveled for two years to reach the US. She and her three children, one of whom was born along the way, had been trafficked, smuggled, abused, and forgotten. They spoke no English and had no identification or paperwork.

In most ways-in all of the ways that matter-she was like every mother: She wanted safety, care, and peace for her children. But as I sat with her in the clinic that day, I silently grappled with a hard truth: I could not guarantee her any of those things in our country.

The family separation policy recently implemented by the Trump Administration has and will continue to inflict undeserved short- and long-term physical and mental abuse on both children and parents; long-term family interment, if implemented, will be similarly traumatizing. But the sad truth is, these abuses are not new. What we are seeing now at the border is not radically different than what those of us on the front lines have witnessed for years: profound and needless human suffering inflicted upon thousands of brave mothers and fathers striking out to try to make a better life for their children.

Circle of Health International (COHI) , the nonprofit I founded 14 years ago, began its work at the McAllen clinic over the July Fourth weekend in 2014, when a "mass exodus of unaccompanied minors" was arriving along the Texas/Mexico border. We began, as we do in all our work, with a needs assessment to determine what services were available. This assessment was led by a first-generation immigrant who specialized in adolescent sexual health. She found that the abuses these minors were fleeing ranged from gun violence to domestic violence. She also found that when they arrived at the US border, they were met with additional abuse while in the custody of the US Border Patrol. These human rights violations included limited hydration and nutrition (receiving only one meal and one bottle of water a day), extremely cold conditions inside the facilities, denial of medical care even when requested, and lights being left on for 24 hours.

One of our first actions when we started supporting this clinic was to collaborate with the Program for Survivors of Torture at Bellevue Hospital to determine the rates of PTSD among the population passing through the clinic. Alarmingly, the rates hovered around 80 percent-but more startling was the realization that the majority of the PTSD cases were not due to the gang and domestic violence that most women and children were fleeing; it was due to the horrific treatment they received from Border Patrol. The individuals that COHI has had the honor to care for over the last four years arrive with harrowing tales of having been trafficked along their journey, and frightened about their own security and the security of the family left behind. Yet it is their treatment at the border that causes the most lasting psychological scars.

Nor does that abuse end once undocumented immigrants seeking asylum enter the country. In 2015, we were invited to sit on a panel organized by the Center for Reproductive Rights to commemorate International Women's Day. Afterwards, the members of this panel wrote a paper highlighting the human rights abuses taking place in the Rio Grande Valley regarding barriers to access to care. Undocumented immigrant women spoke of the lack of information regarding affordable care, the daunting bureaucracy at sliding-scale clinics, and discrimination from service providers. One woman, informed she had three months to live unless she immediately began cancer treatment, was then discouraged from applying for insurance; the hospital social worker told her, "It would be better if you went back to where you came from."

Over these last four years, we have also witnessed an escalation in the hostile and shameful treatment of this population-an escalation that began long before President Trump took office. Two years ago, we began to see ankle monitors forcibly placed on women and even children. These monitors beeped very loudly when they needed to be charged and could not be removed, requiring our clinic volunteers to cut the pants off the mothers and children when they presented at the clinic for care. Recent reporting has also revealed the abysmal conditions at some of the privately run shelters for immigrant children, including forced druggings , physical beatings , and other abuses .

The public outrage surrounding the Trump administration's family separation policy has been heartening to witness. But for those of us who have spent years witnessing the ongoing humanitarian crisis at our border, the overall media silence has been soul-crushing. We can only hope that the spotlight shone on this most recent egregious policy will bring to light the myriad other abuses inflicted on immigrants, so that these men, women, and children finally receive the care, attention, and protection owed to them.
Sera Bonds (SPH'04) is the founder and CEO of Circle of Health International.

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The US Treatment of Immigrants Is a Human Rights Crisis. It Has Been for Years.

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It was a cold, gray day in March in McAllen, Texas. I was staffing a refugee/asylee clinic at the Catholic Charities respite center, a glamorized closet in the back of a receiving center. There had been a dramatic ice storm in the last fews days-uncommon in South Texas-and so the buses to carry families to their next destination were not running.

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"Operation Lone Star"

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The effect it has on the Us economy

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The family separation policy