Increased immigration enforcement in East Texas is prompting more calls to local advocates and immigration attorneys, who say some families are seeking help understanding their options.<\/p>\n
Gilbert Urbina, executive director of the Hispanic American Association of East Texas, said his organization has seen more people affected by immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
“We have seen an increase in immigration enforcement,” Urbina said. “Some of our clients who don’t have a Texas driver’s license have been arrested, detained and removed.”<\/p>\n
Urbina described one recent case involving a man from El Salvador who had lived in the United States since 2015.<\/p>\n
Urbina said the man was detained in July after he was stopped while driving and did not have a Texas driver’s license. He remained in custody from July 24 until early September before being removed to El Salvador, according to Urbina.<\/p>\n
The man’s wife is a U.S. citizen and is undergoing cancer treatment, Urbina said. The couple’s two children are U.S. citizens and attend college in Tyler.<\/p>\n
Urbina said the family had been working through the immigration process before the man was removed.<\/p>\n
“They were trying to work through the immigration process, and now they have a family member that has been removed from the United States,” Urbina said. “So now we have a struggling family.”<\/p>\n
Urbina said the case demonstrates how immigration enforcement can affect more than the person who is detained.<\/p>\n
“When a family is affected, the community overall is affected,” he said.<\/p>\n
Jose Sanchez, an immigration attorney in Longview, said his office has also received more calls about immigration-related concerns.<\/p>\n
“I myself and other immigration lawyers are getting obviously more calls than normal,” Sanchez said.<\/p>\n
Sanchez said he has seen immigration enforcement activity in East Texas, including in Longview and Gregg County.<\/p>\n
He encouraged people with questions about their individual immigration status to seek advice from a qualified immigration attorney.<\/p>\n
“You always want to be prepared for any situation, especially in these situations of being detained by immigration,” Sanchez said.<\/p>\n
Urbina said his organization continues to assist people navigating the immigration process.<\/p>\n
In the case he described, the father is now in El Salvador while his wife continues cancer treatment in Tyler and their children remain in college.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Increased immigration enforcement in East Texas is prompting more calls to local advocates and immigration attorneys, who say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2604,149939,70583,1830,13426,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-431493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-east-texas","tag-gilbert-urbina","tag-immigration-attorney","tag-immigration-enforcement","tag-jose-sanchez","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431493","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=431493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}