Tag Archives: Indigenous

El País: The Dreamer Xóchitl Santiago in Trump’s immigration court

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The meeting is at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, outside the El Paso Service Processing Center. Family, friends and aid groups have called the press, activists, community leaders, and anyone else who wants to join in. The idea is for the place to be filled with banners depicting a young Indigenous woman, sometimes wearing a Texan hat, sometimes surrounded by flowers, sometimes harvesting the land, sometimes carrying a basket in the middle of a furrow in some field in South Florida. The hope is also for the final release of Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago, a Mexican Zapotec woman, the daughter of farmers, the beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the Dreamer who should never have been detained in early August as she was about to board a domestic flight to Houston.

Outside, the detention center is a beehive of activity. Inside, the hearing is underway in which a judge is deciding Xóchitl’s future. A future that has been on hold for 25 days, since August 3, when two Border Patrol agents detained the 28-year-old at El Paso International Airport while she was heading to a conference as part of her work with the nonprofit organization La mujer obrera (The working woman). It was almost 5:00 a.m. when the agents asked her to accompany them.

“What for?” asked Xóchitl.

“We’re going to ask you questions about your documents,” an officer replied.

“What’s the interrogation for?” she insisted.

“We’ll talk about it downstairs,” they told her.

The officers wanted to know how she obtained her work permit, the identification she has as a DACA recipient. Xóchitl demanded the presence of her lawyer, but the second officer ironically preempted her: “Well, you can’t see your lawyer unless he buys a plane ticket.”

The conversation was recorded on Xóchitl’s cell phone, and she managed to send it to her partner, Desiree Miller. Afterward, Xóchitl stopped texting. “I didn’t know where she was; I thought she was on the flight, and that’s why she wasn’t responding. I didn’t know exactly what was going on,” her partner says. Apparently, there was no problem with her documents, which were valid until April 29, 2026.

No one heard from her again until a few hours later, when she was allowed to make a call. Xóchitl confirmed that she was indeed in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “This is not an isolated incident,” the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) denounced in a statement. “Catalina is part of a disturbing and growing trend in which legally resident immigrants are detained without cause.”

Contrary to the protections afforded them until now by a program like DACA, Xóchitl is on the growing list of young people arrested in recent months by the Donald Trump administration. In a country with a government focused on meeting its self-imposed deportation quotas, the more than 500,000 DACA beneficiaries are not exempt from persecution, detention, or expulsion.

DACA, the unfulfilled promise of protection

Until now that it happened to his sister Xóchitl, JL—who asked to be identified only by his initials—didn’t feel like anything could happen to him, or that life would go back to the way it was before 2012, when they were still living almost in hiding, inhabiting the ghostly world of the undocumented. “We thought there was no risk, since DACA is protection against deportation, but today, making any mistake is a risk,” he says.

JL, 29, recalls the time when he and his sister, aged eight and nine respectively, set out from Oaxaca to travel the dangerous route to the border. “We were so afraid of getting lost or dying in the desert, but we made it.” The Zapotec family later settled in Homestead, a major agricultural area in Miami.

It was difficult, especially for them, as they not only didn’t understand English, but also didn’t speak Spanish. “At home, we didn’t speak Spanish, but Zapotec,” says JL. “That was a shock. Neither the school system nor the government knew what to do with us; there weren’t as many migrants then as there are now.”

The parents dedicated themselves to agricultural work. As teenagers, the kids combined their high school studies with farm work. Xóchitl and JL worked the Homestead fields, harvesting beans, pumpkins, cherries, and okra.

Working the land has been a skill the siblings retain to this day. JL remains involved in agriculture, and Xóchitl, from the age of 17, became involved in working with migrant support organizations. It was at that age, in 2012, that President Barack Obama announced a program that would benefit some 700,000 people across the country who had arrived in the United States as children and could now live under protection that is renewed every two years.

Like many, the siblings were suspicious of a program that required them to hand over their personal information to the authorities, not knowing what the latter might do with it. “We didn’t know how it would work, or if it would last long, because administrations change,” says JL. “Even so, we applied; there wasn’t much to lose and more to gain.”

DACA allowed them to do many things for the first time, to begin inhabiting an area of life that until now had been forbidden to them. For example, they had, for the first time, a driver’s license. They could also, for the first time, board a domestic flight, but also return to visit the countries they had left. That’s why Xóchitl didn’t think she’d have any problems when she boarded her flight a few weeks ago. However, it’s clear to her brother that there is no guarantee of anything these days, at least not until DACA becomes a program that facilitates immigration status and gives them the possibility of moving toward naturalization.

“We’ve always said there’s no permanent solution for the many people in this country in our situation,” JL says. “So there’s always that risk. For now, DACA is protection from deportation, but it doesn’t protect you from being detained or from facing that long, costly, and inhumane process.”

In a statement to the press, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserted that Xóchitl’s arrest was due to a criminal record that included charges for trespassing and possession of drug paraphernalia. However, her attorney, Norma Islas, issued a statement refuting this claim and asserting that “no such pending criminal charges exist.”

Although Donald Trump lashed out against DACA during his first administration, at the end of last year he made it seem as though, once he returned to the White House, he intended for its beneficiaries to remain in the country. It only took a few months for the fear to return, however. Not only have they been told that Dreamers would not be eligible for the federal health insurance marketplace, but Tricia McLaughlin, deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), encouraged them to self-deport and let them know that “DACA does not grant any type of legal status in this country.”

The statements and news of the arrests of other beneficiaries of the program have been a shock for a community that has built a life, created families (250,000 citizen children have parents with DACA status), and contributes some $16 billion to the U.S. economy each year. That’s why Desiree Miller insists that every vigil they’ve held outside the detention center, every protest, and every call to the community is not only for Xóchitl’s release, but “for the millions of people who are going through the same thing.”

The Dreamer Xóchitl Santiago in Trump’s immigration court
The Zapotec beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has been detained by immigration authorities since early August despite her supposed legal protection. Her hearing is scheduled for Wednesday

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-08-27/the-dreamer-xochitl-santiago-in-trumps-immigration-court.html

NBC News: Immigration raid fears trigger Latino student absences, as experts warn of consequences

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Chronic absenteeism affects children’s health and outcomes, as well as classmates and school resources, experts say, as some districts try to stem families’ fears of going to school.

As the new school year approaches, the typical worries of getting supplies and organizing schedules are compounded for families of mixed immigration status: wondering whether or not to send their children to class due to fears of an immigration raid at the school.

“I’ve heard so many people ask what to do, whether to take them or not, because of all these fears,” Oreana, a mother of four children enrolled in schools in Phoenix, Arizona, told Noticias Telemundo.

The fact that places like churches and schools are no longer considered “sensitive” spaces from immigration enforcement actions “causes a lot of fear,” the Venezuelan woman said.

Up until late January, when President Donald Trump took office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s operations had been restricted in churches, schools and hospitals.

The Trump administration has defended its decision to allow immigration raids in formerly sensitive locations, such as schools. “ICE does not typically conduct immigration enforcement activities at schools or school buses,” the agency told NBC News in March, adding that an immigration action near a school would be from a “case-by-case determination.”

But fear of possible immigration raids in schools isn’t just coming from parents. This past weekend, the Los Angeles Teachers Union held a protest to demand that the district do more to protect students from immigrant families.

Last semester, uneasiness following immigration raids resulted in more students missing school, according to Thomas S. Dee, a specialist in the School of Education at Stanford University.

Dee published an analysis in June whose results indicate that “recent raids coincided with a 22 percent increase in daily student absences” in California’s Central Valley, an agricultural area that’s home to many immigrant farmworkers.

The school absences were especially notable among preschool and elementary students, he noted, an age when parents are more likely to take them to school.

“We saw, when the raids began, a sharp increase in student absences that was very distinctive from the typical patterns we’d see across the school year,” Dee said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo, “and in particular relative to those baselines that we’d seen in prior years.”

What the numbers show

Beyond California, states like Washington state and Illinois have seen similar situations in some school districts.

In the suburbs of Seattle, the impact is notorious in the Highline district, which operates nearly 30 schools. There, data shows that chronic absenteeism — missing more than 10% of a class period — rose to 48% for the school year that ended in July, reversing gains the district had made over the previous two years in reducing K-12 absentee rates.

In Chicago, high school educators also reported 20% lower attendance compared to the previous year.

But Hispanic K-12 students were already likely to accumulate more absences before Trump’s second term. Some factors include going to work at an earlier age to support the family, health-related reasons or having to care for a family member during school hours.

In Illinois, Hispanic students had the second-highest chronic absenteeism rate throughout 2024, at 33%, compared to 26% across all demographic groups, according to data from the State Board of Education. Noticias Telemundo contacted the board and Illinois districts to obtain updated data through June 2025, but didn’t receive a response.

The current situation adds to disruptions to schooling that have been taking place since the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in widespread academic delays.

“We’re in an environment where we’ve seen historic losses in student achievement, sustained increases in chronic absenteeism, as well as a notable increase in the mental health challenges that youth are facing,” Dee said. “And so I see these immigration raids as only adding to the already considerable challenges of academic recovery that schools are currently facing.”

Fewer resources, more anxiety

Being absent several times during a school year has a considerable impact on a student’s education.

“Such extensive absences lead not only to poor academic performance; they often lead to students dropping out of school. And the impact of dropping out of high school is profound,” the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) stated via email.

The association highlighted that earnings for those who don’t graduate from high school are considerably lower than for those who do.

The impact, experts have said, goes beyond the classroom.

“Attending school regularly is one of the most powerful predictors of long term health, well-being and success,” Josh Sharfstein of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, said at a conference in mid-June.

This is because absences can affect children’s emotional and intellectual development, as well as their education. For example, they can trigger anxiety disorders that further harm children’s well-being and further encourage school absences.

Several associations have launched a campaign calling for school absences to be considered a public health problem.

“When multiple students in a classroom are chronically absent, the churn in the classroom affects everyone, even peers who had good attendance. It makes it harder for teachers to teach and set classroom norms, as well as for students to connect with each other,” said Hedy Chang, executive director of the Attendance Works group, which is leading a campaign launched in June.

Chronic absenteeism due to fears of immigration raids can have a knock-on economic effect, according to Dee.

“This also has financial implications for school districts,” he said. California is one of a handful of states that bases aid, in part, on average daily attendance, according to Dee, so when fewer kids show, that means fewer resources.

“I would expect that to have pejorative economic consequences for these communities as well as for the financial viability of the school districts serving them,” Dee said.

In many districts, repeated offenses related to absenteeism can also lead to youth being sent to truancy court. There, penalties can range from paying fines to serving time in juvenile detention.

Latino, Black and Indigenous youth in the U.S. are already more frequently referred to truancy court than non-Hispanic white students, in part because the former demographic groups’ absences are more likely to be recorded as “unjustified or unexcused,” research shows.

Preventive strategies

In response to long-standing concerns about truancy, there are strategies to combat absenteeism.

“There are many steps districts, schools, families and community partners can take to improve attendance,” said Chang, of Attendance Works.

At a Connecticut school where attendance fell early in the year due to fears of immigration raids, truancy was successfully curbed toward the end of the semester with measures such as directly contacting families and developing contingency plans.

These strategies include reaching out to community leaders, such as local church figures or food bank workers, who have contact with certain families to help encourage them to continue sending their children to school.

Another strategy that school principals belonging to NASSP say has helped is maintaining close contact with students — for example, calling their families’ homes to check on them.

Experts hope that these kinds of measures can help address the issue of absences in students of mixed immigration status who are afraid of potential immigration raids.

“In some districts, we’ve heard from students who can’t attend classes regularly right now for reasons like fear of raids, and they’ve been offered virtual learning,” Dee said. “I think educators need to be more aware of the challenges their students are currently facing due to these issues.”

For now, with protests like the one the teachers’ union held in Los Angeles, additional options are being explored, such as a districtwide campaign to educate parents about the importance of sharing an emergency contact with school administrators in case a parent is deported while the child is at school.

In the Highline school district in Washington state, communications manager Tove Tupper said in an email they’re “committed to protecting the rights and dignity of all students, families, and staff” and ensure all students “have a right to a public education, as protected by law,” regardless of citizenship or immigration status.

Immigration raid fears trigger Latino student absences as experts warn of consequences
Chronic absenteeism affects children’s health and outcomes, as well as classmates and school resources, experts say, as some districts try to stem families’ fears of going to school.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/fear-immigration-raids-latino-student-absences-school-ice-rcna223093

Harpar’s Bazaar: What Should Artists Do When Alligator Alcatraz Moves Next Door?

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The Florida Everglades are home to a diverse community of artists. The Trump administration targeted this area to build a controversial ICE detention center, and residents are fighting back.

On June 14, Dakota Osceola was wrapping up the day, selling her bead art and necklaces at a festival in Miami, when she heard the news from a friend.

A new immigrant detention facility, to be named Alligator Alcatraz, would be built on a 10,500-foot-long old airport strip inside the Big Cypress National Preserve in the Florida Everglades.

“How is this happening right now?” she thought.

Home of the indigenous Miccosukee and Seminole people, the Everglades are the largest wetland ecosystem in the United States and the land where Osceola’s family grew up. This territory is considered a sacred place to tribe members and a national wildlife treasure to Floridians. But in less than 10 days, a portion of the Everglades was seized by the state and paved over to make room for a new prison built to hold up to 3,000 immigrants, a move supported by the Trump administration as a means to detain undocumented people.

On June 28, in the scorching heat, Osceola decided to go voice her opposition to this detention camp. Grassroots organizations such as Friends of the Everglades and Unidos Immokalee voiced environmental and human-rights concerns. Alongside independent activists, artists from the South Florida community joined with their protest art and signs to defend the home that has inspired them and that they love.

Outside the gates of the detention facility, and in the center of the Everglades, hundreds of Floridians gathered, chanting and holding up signs. Miccosukee tribal elder and environmental activist Betty Osceola, with Love the Everglades Movement, used her megaphone to address the crowd and keep people safe. Demonstrators lined up on the narrow road, north of the Tamiami Trail, as dozens of trucks with machinery entered the old Dade-Collier Airport, where the facility was being built. In the weeks since, different organizations have continued to arrange protests and gatherings weekly in front of these gates. There have been peaceful prayer vigils with no signs allowed, a protest asking to shut down the Everglades concentration camp, and family members of detainees gathered along with grassroots human-rights organizations, and a Catholic archbishop is waiting to see if he can hold a mass at the gates.

Outside the gates of the detention facility, and in the center of the Everglades, hundreds of Floridians gathered, chanting and holding up signs. Miccosukee tribal elder and environmental activist Betty Osceola, with Love the Everglades Movement, used her megaphone to address the crowd and keep people safe. Demonstrators lined up on the narrow road, north of the Tamiami Trail, as dozens of trucks with machinery entered the old Dade-Collier Airport, where the facility was being built. In the weeks since, different organizations have continued to arrange protests and gatherings weekly in front of these gates. There have been peaceful prayer vigils with no signs allowed, a protest asking to shut down the Everglades concentration camp, and family members of detainees gathered along with grassroots human-rights organizations, and a Catholic archbishop is waiting to see if he can hold a mass at the gates.

A member of the Seminole tribe, Osceola was aware of how hard the tribes fought in the 1970s to stop the construction of the old airport due to the environmental damage it would cause to the fragile ecosystem of the Glades. That battle was won when the construction came to a halt due to growing opposition from environmentalist groups. But now, into that abandoned air strip, the construction trucks started coming in, creating more and more traffic inside the Big Cypress National Preserve. Then, a sign with the words “Alligator Alcatraz” went up overnight, sparking sinister national jokes, memes, and merch about the alligators eating anyone who tries to escape this jail.

Protesters had different reasons to voice their opposition to the detention center: It would harm a fragile ecosystem and is not environmentally sound; it is an inappropriate use of FEMA funds; conditions there are inhumane. When Florida lawmakers visited the facility on a limited tour, they described 32 people per cage in the sweltering heat, exposed to bug infestations and fed meager meals, with prisoners crying for help and even one person pleading, “I’m a U.S. citizen!”

An important point ignored in national coverage is that the construction involves a seizure by the state of Miami-Dade-owned land under the guise of an emergency. The Miccosukee tribe joined other environmental groups, such as Love the Everglades, in suing federal and state agencies for failing to conduct an environmental review, as required by federal law, before initiating the project. Meanwhile, the ACLU is suing the Trump administration because of a lack of access to counsel at the detention center.

“I see my relatives, my family, in those cages. They came here undocumented, overstayed their visas, and eventually became citizens,” says Aubrey Brown, a Florida-based storyteller and artist who contributed to the protest sign art. Brown, who shares stories about Florida’s history with her 40,000 followers on social media, couldn’t stay silent and decided to speak up against the detention center, risking backlash. “I’ve always tried to stress that history and politics are inextricably intertwined,” she adds. Challenging the false narrative used by the president to make others believe there is nothing but fierce alligators and swamps in the Everglades, Brown argues, “People must understand that the Everglades is not a wasteland; this is people’s home. The Glades are wild, sacred, and free. It’s where the Seminoles went to hide from being captured, and it is where I go when I want to get away from everything.”

Acting as if no people exist in the Everglades, the federal government decided to seize land belonging to Miami-Dade County, completely ignoring the sovereignty of tribal nations at Big Cypress and that both their ceremonial and ancestral burial grounds stand near the facility.

“When it comes to my Seminole and Miccosukee friends, people treat them like they are not here anymore and are a relic of history,” Brown adds.

Once considered a swing state, Florida is now ground zero for the MAGA base supporting cruel anti-immigration policies. Built undercover, this facility was estimated to cost taxpayers $450 million a year. However, according to a review of purchases, the state has already spent $250 million on it in less than one month.

President Trump said that the facility would cage “some of the most vicious people on the planet” to be deported. Yet, a report released by the Miami Herald debunked this narrative, showing that hundreds of the detainees have no criminal charges.

Kidnapped without a warrant, stripped of their civil rights, and placed into a black hole where attorneys cannot reach their clients, only a third of detainees have a criminal conviction. But the public cannot see the nature of the sentence they received. ICE has so far offered the press only top-level statistics, which do not show whether a sentence is for a traffic violation or a murder attempt. Not only do the reports withhold details about the alleged offenses of each detainee, but ICE has not made public the records specifying how it targets the people it takes to detention centers, especially those without criminal charges. In response, The Guardian has decided to sue the Trump administration for withholding public documents from the press, which are a matter of clear public interest right now.

Maria Theresa Barbist, a Miami-based artist and psychologist who explores trauma, memory, and collective healing in her works, attended and made signs for the protest. “I am from Austria, and we have a dark history there. We have done this before. We have put people in concentration camps, and we know how this story ends. It’s our responsibility as descendants of Nazis never to let that happen again,” she says.

“The Nazis did not start with Auschwitz; they started with driving people out of their homes and putting them into camps. It was not just Jewish people, it was immigrants too,” she adds.

“This is not the first concentration camp being placed; they are just getting warmed up. Project 2025 is going to extend for at least the next four years,” says Eddie Aroyo, an artist who explores themes of power structures and attended the protest. “This is about absolute conquest,” he adds, referring to a conservative white nationalist agenda that opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and racial equity.

Democratic Florida representative Maxwell Frost visited the detention center on July 13 and shared on social media, “I didn’t see any Europeans who overstayed their visa. I saw nothing but Latino men and Haitian men. They are targeting specific types of people. And it’s the type of people that look like me.”

A few miles away from the detention camp, artist and native Floridian Sterling Rook, who attended the protest, is currently completing an artist residency in the Everglades National Park. Hosted by AIRIE (Artists in Residence in Everglades), this program allows artists to explore work related to the environment. The first day he entered the residency was also the day the first buses carrying migrants arrived in the Everglades. “It’s beautiful out here, but now I think about this every day, how 30 miles away from here there are people in tents in a terrible situation,” he says. “I’m not necessarily a political artist, but you become political just by the nature of your situation,” he adds. Rook used his residency time to work on a Glades skiff boat, which is known for navigating the marshy waters of the Everglades.

“As a performance, I would love to ride it out into ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ maybe leave it there as a symbol of rescue and escape. But I also struggle with self-censorship,” he says.

This self-censorship comes from a place of very real fear about political persecution of artists who speak up. “There are genuine and considerable threats when speaking out against any of these violent governmental policies, especially in Florida,” says Johann C. Muñoz-Tapasco, an artist and organizer affiliated with the local collective Artists for Artists Miami (A4A: MIA). “Numerous artists have chosen to disengage from sought-after exhibition platforms and institutions altogether. Others have lost their jobs and clients. Many more have self-censored as a form of self-preservation.”

Federal and state funding cuts to the arts, combined with the elimination of National Endowment for the Arts grants and Florida’s political climate, have led many artists, organizations, and institutions that depend on this funding to limit freedom of expression, fearing retaliation or even more economic cuts. AIRIE did not respond to my request for a statement on its stance on this issue. The majority of Florida’s art institutions and organizations have remained silent.

A4A: MIA is currently discussing collaborative projects and planning actions against this detention facility, but it recognizes that American artists have been woefully unprepared to respond to the rise of fascism. “Since the postwar era, the ways artists validate their work and fund their practices have been tied to the tastes and whims of those in power,” misael soto, a Miami-based artist, educator, and organizer affiliated with this organization, stated. “Now those at the top whom we’ve been dependent on, on whichever side of the political spectrum, are mostly kneeling to fascism. Artists have to come to terms with how they sustain their practices and how this is intrinsically tied to their art.”

Mae’anna Osceola-Hart, a photographer and member of the Panther Clan and the Seminole tribe, participated in organizing the protest and lives within walking distance of the detention camp. Her grandfather was one of the tribe members who fought the development of the Dade-Collier Airport. These days, the traffic on the Big Cypress reserve is becoming increasingly dangerous, and she describes seeing the wildlife already being displaced. “The deer and bears now walk on the side of the road,” she says.

“My heart sinks, seeing how this concentration camp is affecting the land that protected us indigenous people since time immemorial, the environmental impacts it’s already causing, along with how it’s already harming human beings and their rights. Just yesterday, I saw three cars coming in with people wanting to take a photo in front of the [Alligator Alcatraz] sign, treating it like a roadside attraction,” she says.

“It feels like a fever dream.”

What Should Artists Do When Alligator Alcatraz Moves Next Door?
The Florida Everglades are home to a diverse community of artists. The Trump administration targeted this area to build a controversial ICE detention center, and residents are fighting back.

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a65488687/artists-fight-alligator-alcatraz

Deseret News: Federal judge orders Trump administration to restore some research on women’s health and transgender mental health issues

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The articles talked about the mental and physical health of women and transgender individuals

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration must restore medical research articles from a government database, which were removed for promoting “gender ideology,” per The Christian Post.

The authors of the articles, Harvard medical researchers Gordon Schiff and Celeste Royce, sued the Trump administration over the removal of their research from the Patient Safety Network, according to The Harvard Crimson.

One of the articles in question was removed for commenting on the diagnosis of endometriosis, an often-debilitating medical condition, for women, transgender and non-gender-conforming individuals.

Another paper was removed for commenting on the importance of recognizing groups at risk for suicide, stating that young people, veterans, men, Indigenous, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer groups are at particular risk.

Massachusetts District Court Judge Leo Sorokin argued that the articles’ removal violated the First Amendment.

“This is a flagrant violation of the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights as private speakers on a limited public forum,” he stated according to The Christian Post. “Because irreparable harm necessarily flows from such a violation, and the balance of harms and the public interest favor the plaintiffs, the motion for a preliminary injunction is allowed in part.”

Federal judge orders Trump administration to restore some research on women’s health and transgender mental health issues
The articles in question talked about the mental and physical health of women and transgender individuals.

https://www.deseret.com/politics/2025/05/27/judge-orders-trump-administration-restore-research-on-women-transgender-health