Taxpayers have paid more than $1.5 billion to private companies operating shelters accused of serious lapses in care, including neglect and abuse.
Families Divided
President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy drew sharp rebukes after it was announced in April 2018 — especially after children who had been separated from their parents started being placed in a tent city in Tornillo. Trump signed an executive order June 20 that would keep immigrant families together, but it’s unclear how — or if — families that have already been separated will be reunited. With support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Texas Tribune has been reporting on the issue from the Texas-Mexico border, Washington, D.C., and Austin. You can help by sending story tips to tips@texastribune.org.
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Families Divided
On a bridge over the Rio Grande, immigrants seeking asylum wait for a chance to enter the U.S.
Sleeping on the bridge connecting Brownsville with Mexico, a Guatemalan man says he’ll wait as long as it takes to get across and find his wife and children. But federal agents stationed on the bridge have kept him and more than a dozen others from requesting asylum.
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Families Divided
Republicans in Washington are closer to a compromise on immigration — but it’s still unclear if they can pass a bill
Republicans in Congress appear closer to reaching a compromise on immigration — and ending family separations at the Texas-Mexico border — after a closed-door meeting with President Donald Trump Tuesday evening.
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Families Divided
A facility to house immigrant children is planned for Houston. City officials don’t want it.
State Sen. Sylvia Garcia referred to the warehouse — which most recently housed families displaced by Hurricane Harvey — as a planned “baby jail.”
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Families Divided
We asked top Texas leaders — and every Texan in Congress — about separating immigrant families
See where statewide elected officials and members of the Texas congressional delegation come down on the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration enforcement policy that separates immigrant kids from their parents.
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Families Divided
Texas House Speaker Joe Straus asks Trump to end policy of separating immigrant children
House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, wants President Donald Trump to end his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that has led to thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents at the border.
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Families Divided
Ted Cruz introduces legislation to keep immigrant families together after they cross the border
Cruz’s Protect Kids and Parents Act would require the federal government to keep immigrant families together “absent aggravated criminal conduct or threat of harm to the children.”
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Families Divided
Listen to crying children who’ve just been separated from their parents at the Texas-Mexico border
ProPublica has obtained audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility in which children can be heard wailing as an agent jokes, “We have an orchestra here.”
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Families Divided
Former first lady Laura Bush calls Trump’s zero tolerance policy “cruel”
“Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso,” former first lady Laura Bush wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post.
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Families Divided
In Sunday sermons, Texas faith leaders rebuke Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy
Churches, especially in deep-red Texas, often sit out partisan squabbles. But the issue of family separations is not a political one, some faith leaders say — it’s a humanitarian and moral crisis.