Small Texas border city finds itself in spotlight amid immigrant children separations

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on this small city along the Mexican border amid cries of human rights abuses by the Trump administration and its now-rescinded policy of forcibly separating parents and children who illegally cross into the United States.

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 suspected migrants for processing and removed children from their parents’ care while the families are inside the facility.

“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 border 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, formally known as the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley Humanitarian Respite Center, helps anywhere from 25-200 migrants a day. The migrants, who are reunited with their children when they leave the detention center, walk over two blocks after being cut loose by the federal court system and Border Patrol officials, having been held from two to four days.

Adults are fitted with GPS ankle monitors and ordered to appear in court again later, and then allowed to move deeper into the United States to stay with friends or family.

The migrants who arrive at Pimentel’s shelter are the lucky ones, and it shows on their faces after their first hot meal in weeks, along with the opportunity to pick out clean clothes from donations. Wednesday night, crying babies were quieted with bites of warm beef stew, and older kids watched Telemundo streamed online. Counselors chatted with them about simple medical needs and offered them English placards to help the Spanish-only speaker navigate the United States.

Most of these migrants were only briefly separated from their kids inside detention centers due to a policy designed to keep unrelated adults and kids separate. Volunteers at Pimentel’s shelter say it’s unclear why these migrants are released and others are held for deportation.

President Donald Trump argues the zero-tolerance policy that criminally charge immigrants caught crossing the border illegally is a necessity, claiming they are “infesting” the United States with crime and drugs.

Talk like that makes McAllen Mayor Jim Darling cringe. Darling notes that McAllen has a booming economy thanks to a foreign-trade zone and low crime. He says there’s no sign of the gangs Trump keeps talking about, and wishes more people would come see McAllen for themselves.

“We’re a nice city,” he said Wednesday. “It’s unfair that a couple of days of news is painting us this way.”

Like many longtime residents, Darling is also frustrated that journalists seem to have only just discovered that families are often separated after being detained at the border, whether simply inside the centers or indefinitely under Trump's now-rescinded policy. The large detention centers drawing international attention were commissioned by President Barack Obama in 2014 and after an initial flurry of stories, journalists have largely ignored them and the specifics of how migrant families are treated.

Darling, who has visited the detention centers, said he’s come away reassured that people are being treated well: “It could be worse. But they could be better, absolutely.”

Pimentel, who led a large march Wednesday evening that briefly surrounded a federal courthouse, said she’s glad the world is finally waking up to the tragedy of immigration issues on the U.S.-Mexican border, but isn’t confident Congress and the president will offer acceptable solutions.

Protester Arnold Serna, 23, who carried a "Stop Deportations" banner, said he hoped people of faith would rally to the cause and persuade Trump to alter his stance on immigration: "There's so much hateful rhetoric."

Pimentel remains skeptical and said Trump’s rhetoric only seems to make people more determined to cross the border.

“The more he speaks, the more they come,” Pimentel said.

WSBTV