Small Texas city finds itself in spotlight over immigration
McALLEN, Texas – The eyes of the world have focused on this small city along the Mexican border amid cries of human rights abuses by the Trump administration under its rescinded policy of separating parents and children who improperly cross into the USA.
The U.S. Border Patrol’s McAllen Station is the busiest for apprehending and detaining immigrants suspected of entering the country illegally, and protests have erupted around the area.
Much of the attention has centered on a sprawling, red-roofed detention center near the airport, where dozens of Border Patrol agents have locked up hundreds of migrants for processing and removed children from their parents’ care while the families are inside.
“It’s about time the whole country wakes up and says, ‘This is wrong,’ ” said Sister Norma Pimentel, who runs a respite center for migrants in this town of about 130,000 people. “This is their suffering. But I’ve been seeing this suffering for four years or more.”
Pimentel’s shelter, the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley Humanitarian Respite Center, helps 25 to 200 migrants a day. The migrants, who are reunited with their children when they leave the detention center, walk more than two blocks after being cut loose by the federal court system and Border Patrol officials, having been held two to four days.
Adults are fitted with GPS ankle monitors and ordered to appear in court again, and then they’re allowed to move deeper into the USA to stay with friends or family.
The migrants who arrive at Pimentel’s shelter get their first hot meal in weeks, along with the opportunity to pick out clean clothes from donations.
Most of these migrants were separated from their children inside detention centers under a policy designed to keep unrelated adults and kids separate.
Volunteers at Pimentel’s shelter said it was unclear why these migrants were released while others were held for deportation.
President Donald Trump has argued that the “zero tolerance” policy that criminally charges immigrants caught crossing the border illegally is a necessity, claiming they are “infesting” the USA with crime and drugs.
Such talk makes McAllen Mayor Jim Darling cringe. Darling said McAllen has a booming economy, thanks to a foreign trade zone and low crime. He said there’s no sign of the gangs Trump keeps talking about and wishes more people would come see McAllen.
“We’re a nice city,” he said Wednesday. “It’s unfair that a couple of days of news is painting us this way.”