There haven’t been many moments of joy in the US immigration space these past four years. But March brought celebration to the borderlands as we witnessed the good guys — and gals — prevail over the evil villain, Hollywood-style — if only for a moment. That’s when we saw men, women, and children crossing the […]

The brothers were ambushed on the Ides of March 2019. It happened as they walked toward their childhood home in Quetzaltenango. Guatemala’s second-largest city, boasting a rich Mayan heritage and a dramatic natural backdrop, Xela (as it’s known to locals) is where I went to buy presents for my host family when I lived in […]

The border encampment in Matamoros that had become a makeshift community for thousands has now been emptied of the final 700, or so, souls still living there when Biden announced the end of MPP. But not all 700 camp inhabitants, like Perla, have been allowed to cross. Roughly 70 individuals with “complex cases” remain in […]

Perla has been a professional pharmacist for 22 years. Even as a political refugee living in a tent meant for weekend camping, trapped by circumstance and a cruel immigration policy, the Nicaraguan grandmother managed to ply her trade and make herself useful to the thousands of other refugees halted at the US border by the […]

When Gabriel and his family pitched their tent in the Matamoros refugee camp, they thought it would be for a few months. They were broke, exhausted, and confused. They decided they could endure the indignity of living in the mud on the banks of the Rio Bravo at least until their first asylum hearing. When […]

As we prepare to close the doors on the horrors of the Trump Administration, President Elect Joe Biden will have his hands full trying to restore order and peace in the United States. He will have a long list of wrongs to right, and high among them should be the humanitarian crisis wreaked upon the […]

The Trump Administration has stepped up deportations of Cameroonian and other African asylum seekers in flights operated by ICE contractor, Omni Air International, before Joe Biden takes office. Some face almost certain death upon their arrival. The First Solution author Sarah Towle reports. Remembering the SS St Louis On May 13, 1939, more than 900 […]

With less than a week to Election Day, the eyes of the world are on the United States. What happens next Tuesday is of grave importance not only to the future of the planet but to many hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants as well. Perhaps no issue is more demonstratively clear in terms of […]

She had no idea what she was getting herself into. Raised in Huntsville, Alabama, daughter of liberal parents who’d been active in the Civil Rights Movement, Jenn Budd graduated from Auburn University in 1995 buried in debt. Before realizing her goal of going to law school, she decided to get some real world experience and […]

One day deep in June 2018 — she can’t remember the exact day because she’d been working seven days a week, 16 hours a day, at least, since April — Jodi Goodwin received a curious phone call. It was from a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officer stationed at the Port Isabel Detention Center (PIDC), where her most […]

The gang came for “Sam” on his 15th birthday. He’d said “no” to them before. This time, they gave him an ultimatum: Join us or die. But poor though his family was, Sam did not want to enter a world of crime and brutality from which there was no escape. The gang, born in Los […]

Update: The day we published this article, a federal judge in California extended Judge Dolly Gee’s deadline, giving Trump & Co. 10 more days to ponder the fates of 366 migrant children — until July 27. Those children have been detained with their parents already for far more than the 20 days allowed by the 1997 […]

Whatever I was expecting, Brendon Tucker was not it. A young man with a big presence in the Brownsville/Matamoros humanitarian community, he’s the Angry Tías favorite nephew and Team Brownsville’s prodigal son; the backbone of GRM and the right and left hands of Resource Center Matamoros (RCM). While only 25, his journey here is fascinating, for Tucker was brought up on a diet of right-wing media and racist bile.

What Cindy, Nayelly, Jennifer and Joyce saw was injustice, plain and simple. They were angry. They began a coordinated response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding before their eyes: not only at the bridges, but at courthouses, detention centers, bus stations, and processing centers all across the Rio Grande Valley.