Texas – On Saturday, October 3, immigrant rights advocates, faith communities, grassroots organizations, and concerned Texans will gather at immigration detention facilities and in their communities for a coordinated day of action demanding an end to immigration detention. Texas Indivisible Groups will join Immigrating Youth Texas, Austin Sanctuary Network, and other community partners in this statewide effort. The centerpiece of the day will be a major rally outside the immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas. Members of Congress, faith leaders, immigration advocates, and survivors of Japanese American incarceration have visited or demonstrated outside the facility this year while calling for the release of detained families and its closure.
Advocates across Texas have repeatedly called attention to conditions at detention facilities, barriers to medical care and legal representation, family separation, and the lasting trauma detention can cause children and families. Immigration detention should not be the answer for families and individuals seeking safety, opportunity, and a future in our communities.
“On October 3, Texans will be united to say that our immigrant neighbors deserve dignity, due process, compassion, and freedom — not incarceration,” organizers say. “From large cities to small towns, Texans are seeing the impact immigration enforcement and detention are having on our neighbors. We are coming together because every family deserves to live without the fear of being torn apart.”
Participants will call on elected officials and government agencies to:
- End the detention of immigrant children and families.
- Release individuals who can safely remain with their families and communities while immigration proceedings continue.
- Stop the expansion of immigration detention facilities in Texas.
- Ensure meaningful access to legal counsel, medical care, and due process for people currently detained.
- Reject the use of local public resources to expand or facilitate unnecessary immigration detention.
- Invest in humane, community-based alternatives that allow families to remain together.
October 3 is about showing those families that Texans are standing with them, and we will continue demanding an immigration system rooted in dignity, justice, and humanity