Texas law enforcement agents stopped a family for a “traffic lane issue” and proceeded to report the driver to ICE. The man, whose identity has yet to be revealed, is married to a U.S. citizen and has two U.S.-born children. According to the family’s immigration lawyer, he has no criminal history and is in the process of obtaining his green card.
“The husband is currently undocumented,” Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, the family’s immigration lawyer, shared on social media. “Because of his manner of entry, he has to go through the consular process to get legal status.” According to Lincoln-Goldfinch, the consular green card process takes anywhere between two to six years.
During the three-hour long traffic stop, the man’s wife and kids were left waiting on the side of the road. One of the children, an infant, did not have food or diapers during that time period. The immigration lawyer criticized federal authorities for taking him in, claiming he will still obtain a greencard.
“The end result of his case will be exactly the same, the only difference is that we added one more person to the already overburdened immigration court system,” she noted.
While obtaining permanent residence through marriage is considered a simple legal process, U.S. citizens who marry someone who entered the county illegally face a longer and more complicated road.
In her video, Lincoln-Goldfinch lamented the death of a Biden administration program known as Keeping Families Together, which aimed to provide an expidited legal residency pathway to more than 500,000 undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens. The measure was blocked by a federal court, leaving thousands of mixed-status families unprotected from separation by deportation.
“It would’ve allowed people like this client to get protection from deportation, get a work permit, get legal status quickly,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “This is the result of the policies that are in place right now.”
Multiple Texas law enforcement agencies already collaborated with ICE before Trump’s presidency, and experts predict this partnership will intensify during Trump’s second term. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has pledged to increase deportation operations and border security measures following the president’s inauguration. The state has also offered land to the Trump administration to build detention centers and expand border wall construction.
Reports of ICE arrests nationwide are circulating online. While federal authorities claim to be focusing on detaining and deporting migrants with criminal records, experts anticipate a rise in “collateral arrests,” where undocumented individuals found near targeted migrants are also detained.
“If anybody else is in the house, in the car, or anywhere around that person, and they divulge their immigration status or lack thereof, they’ll get caught up in the arrest,” Lincoln-Goldfinch explained, adding that no reports of large-scale raids have been received yet.
ICE reported making a total of 593 arrests on Friday and 286 arrests on Saturday. During the 2024 federal fiscal year, it averaged approximately 310 arrests per day, according to agency data.
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