{"id":396909,"date":"2026-08-04T00:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/396909\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T00:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:38:07","slug":"san-antonio-hearing-will-document-firsthand-experiences-with-immigration-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/396909\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio hearing will document firsthand experiences with immigration enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for TPR Today<\/a>, Texas Public Radio’s newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.<\/p>\n

A public hearing in San Antonio on Tuesday will collect firsthand testimony about how federal immigration enforcement has affected individuals, families and neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

The People\u2019s Hearing on Immigration Enforcement is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Our Lady of the Lake University. People who have experienced detention are scheduled to testify alongside legal experts, advocates and other community members.<\/p>\n

Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project and chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said the testimony will become part of a public record.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not political,\u201d Garza said. \u201cThis is about ensuring accountability and ensuring that the truth is documented.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garza said immigration enforcement has raised concerns about racial profiling, protest rights and the use of force.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing happen across the country raises really serious civil rights concerns,\u201d she said. \u201cRacial profiling is amongst one of them. The right to protest is being undermined.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pointed to four fatal shootings involving federal immigration agents: the deaths of Ren\u00e9e Good and Alex Pretti<\/a> in Minneapolis, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo<\/a> in Houston, Johan Sebasti\u00e1n Dur\u00e1n Guerrero<\/a> in Maine, and Ruben Ray Martinez<\/a> on South Padre Island. The circumstances and official accounts of the shootings have faced scrutiny. ICE\u2019s involvement in Martinez\u2019s 2025 death was not publicly disclosed until nearly a year after the incident.<\/p>\n

An ACLU report looks at widespread use of force in immigration enforcement in the first year of President Trump’s return to office. Recent fatal shootings in Texas and Maine have renewed scrutiny on the agency’s tactics.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration says its expanded enforcement campaign is intended to enforce federal immigration law, increase removals and protect the public from people it describes as dangerous criminals. Federal data compiled by Syracuse University\u2019s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse showed that 70.8% of people in ICE detention as of April 4 had no criminal conviction. Many of those with convictions had committed minor offenses, including traffic violations.<\/p>\n

The hearing will examine how immigration enforcement operates at the local level, including the role of police departments and surveillance technology such as license plate readers.<\/p>\n

Garza said immigration enforcement can have consequences beyond those directly targeted, including economic effects on businesses and neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat impact reverberates,\u201d she said. \u201cIt lasts a long time, not just for that specific business, but for that neighborhood and that city.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said fear of enforcement can keep customers and workers away, disrupting businesses, industries and economic activity across entire neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, Latino Community Foundation CEO Juli\u00e1n Castro and Our Lady of the Lake University President Abel Antonio Ch\u00e1vez are scheduled to deliver opening remarks at Tuesday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n

Garza and former U.S. Commission on Civil Rights chairs Marty Castro and Norma Cant\u00fa are scheduled to moderate panel discussions.<\/p>\n

The hearing will take place at Sueltenfuss Library at Our Lady of the Lake University, followed by a 4 p.m. press conference outside the Dilley Immigration Processing Center,<\/a> the South Texas federal detention facility that holds immigrant families with children.<\/p>\n

The San Antonio forum is part of a series organized by the Texas Civil Rights Project, Hispanic Federation, Latino Victory Foundation, the Miranda Family Fund and local groups. Previous hearings were held in St. Paul, Chicago and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Another hearing is scheduled for Thursday at the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, beginning at 10 a.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio’s newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-396909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}