On Thursday night, children who were seeking asylum in the United States were illegally detained by unidentified men at a Hampton Inn in McAllen, Texas.
The Texas Civil Rights project, a nonprofit organization, posted a video of one of their attorneys being “aggressively rejected” when he tried to offer the children help. He and another staffer were shoved into the hotel elevator and told that they were not allowed to offer assistance.
BREAKING: Our attorney was aggressively rejected from trying to offer help to immigrant children illegally detained at a Hampton Inn in McAllen, TX. He and another of our staffer were violently shoved into the hotel elevator and were told they could not offer help. #FreeThemALL! https://t.co/xSOxHOViKp pic.twitter.com/MEp7UmK6Gv
— Texas Civil Rights Project (@TXCivilRights) July 23, 2020
Members of the Texas Civil Rights Project parked outside of the Hampton Inn drove by and honked at those detained inside the hotel.
After we were violently removed from trying to help people detained by @DHSgov at a hotel in McAllen, TX, we went outside with signs showing the phone number to get in touch with our legal team. To get folks’ attention inside to look out the window, we all started honking. https://t.co/42dF1eGIzu pic.twitter.com/Jn6kCvAwWp
— Texas Civil Rights Project (@TXCivilRights) July 24, 2020
“We were standing with signs and people were standing at the windows with smaller signs trying to communicate with us and so we’re doing our best with cameras to get their information. Right now we’re honking to let the people inside know that they are not alone, that are attorneys and our advocates in McAllen, Texas are ready to fight with them,” a protestor at the event said.
This is what we saw from the window of the Hampton Inn Hotel today. Families asking for help & telling us they have no phones. @DHSgov is keeping them in this black-site to expel them unless we raise hell
visit https://t.co/zVU9dUHGAX to help#FreeThemAll : @RobertoAleLopez pic.twitter.com/MeJeYh8L7J
— Texas Civil Rights Project (@TXCivilRights) July 24, 2020
Zenén Jaimes Pérez, the organization’s Advocacy & Communications Director, said that it was illegal to detain asylum seekers in a video posted on Twitter.
“All we’re trying to do is make sure the people who are inside are able to get some type of legal help, what the expulsion policy is doing right now is that no one is being afforded due process,” Pérez said. “Everyone is supposed to have some type of legal assistance to go through asylum, especially children, but we know that children are also facing expulsion.”
