Hurricane Harvey has threatened the safety of immigrants in Texas who are afraid to evacuate to shelters or approach authorities to seek help, in part because of a new law set to go into effect Friday that allows police in Texas to ask people they detain for their immigration status. Ahead of the storm, the US Border Patrol said its roadside immigration checkpoints in the state would remain open. The agency later modified their statement, saying, “Routine non-criminal immigration enforcement operations will not be conducted at evacuation sites, or assistance centers such as shelters or food banks.” More than 50 immigrant women and children were left stranded by immigration authorities at a bus station in San Antonio on Friday after bus service was canceled due to Hurricane Harvey. We speak with Rocío Guenther, a reporter with the San Antonio nonprofit news outlet The Rivard Report. She broke the story about ICE in her report headlined, “Stranded Immigrants Find Shelter from Hurricane Harvey.” We also speak with Amy Fischer, policy director for RAICES, a Texas-based nonprofit legal advocacy organization that helped with the rescue of the asylum seekers.
AMY GOODMAN: …Here on Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman with Renee Feltz, a Houston native. In fact Renee, your sister — how is she doing in Houston?
RENEE FELTZ: Amy, my sister lives near one of the major bayous in Houston. Bayous are not a term many people are familiar with. It’s sort of like a river. It’s a major area where the water drains. And she also lives near two major freeways, where the water goes as well. She has evacuated to friends that live on the third floor of their apartments.
So hi, Michelle, and hello to all my friends, and to my former home at KPFT, the Pacifica radio station in Houston, Texas.
We turn right now to look at how Hurricane Harvey and the epic flooding disaster has threatened the safety of immigrants in Texas who are afraid to evacuate to shelters or…