The young father was shaking as he held his fidgety two-year-old daughter who impatiently sucked on a lollipop. Across from the father and mother and two-year-old sat an immigration judge, who was struggling with a missing translator, seeking to ask questions of the family in front of him.

I had been asked to enter the courtroom by their lawyer, who was virtually certain of what would happen the minute the family left the judge’s courtroom. The family would be apprehended by the half dozen, plainclothes ICE agents standing immediately outside the door, and effectively disappeared into a shadowy nearby prison to which lawyers and elected officials could barely gain access.

It didn’t matter that this couple had played by the rules. They came to America to follow the process and apply for asylum. They had a good case. They showed up for all their court appearances. And on this day, the judge didn’t order their detainment or removal: he saw merit in their case and scheduled their next hearing.

But the ICE officers didn’t care. They were under orders from President Donald Trump to put in jail EVERY immigrant they could, including children. And no matter the legal status of the family or individual.

As they got up to leave, I huddled with the family and their young, nervous attorney. We decided we would all leave together, proceed quickly to the elevator, and move directly, all as one big blob of humans, to their ride in the parking lot. Our hope was that those ICE officers might not try to cause a scene, and rip the parents and their child away if they were attached at the hip to a U.S. Senator. Our hunch was right. The ICE officers made a half step toward us but then froze, and the family safely left the building.

It wasn’t the job I thought I was coming to Texas to do. I was there to inspect two massive detention centers that house families (including hundreds of small children) who have been ripped out of their communities by Trump’s ICE. When I was illegally denied entry, I decided to spend the following morning at the San Antonio immigration court, to see for myself the dystopian world that Trump’s immigration police have created.

Families who are complying with the law come to this court. These are not “illegal immigrants.” These are people who are doing it the right way: showing up for court dates and making the legal case for asylum protection. Trump’s ICE is making a mockery of the process, because no matter how meritorious the immigrant’s claim is, most get rounded up and put in detention as soon as they walk out of the courtroom.

The only remaining legal resources at the San Antonio Immigration Courthouse.

The list of horrors I saw is long:

• Trump kicked the local legal aid group out of the San Antonio courthouse and gave the “pro bono attorney” room (it’s still got that sign hanging outside) to ICE to use as their interrogation room.
• An immigration judge was fired the night before I arrived, because she insisted on implementing the law and not ruling against every single immigrant applicant — a clear threat to any judge who is foolish enough to follow the law.
• The ICE officers at the courthouse (who I give credit to for speaking to me) admitted they don’t target criminals; they are looking to lock up EVERYONE, even legal immigrants.
• A giant ICE bus sits outside the courthouse each day, waiting to be loaded with immigrants.
• The prison many get sent to — Pearsall Detention Center — has 1800 detainees and 4 rooms for legal consultations, basically guaranteeing most migrants never see a lawyer before the expedited fake legal process inside the jail results in their deportation. It’s not detention — it’s effectively a campaign of DISAPPEARANCES.

What I saw in Texas was utter lawlessness: an agency out of control, making up its own law — with no respect for the actual law or the Constitution. DHS is terrorizing children and families because it can. They act like they are unaccountable.

This is the same story in Minneapolis (and soon in other cities). Trump is constructing a personal political police force, as fast as he can. He is looking to create confrontations and chaos — especially in swing states — as a possible pretext for something more sinister: the takeover of state elections. ICE is, potentially, his gateway to rig the 2026 election.

Trump’s DHS acts with impunity in places like San Antonio and Minneapolis because it believes Congress will keep giving it blank checks. We should not.

Outside of the Dilley Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas.

Next week, the Senate will vote on the annual funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. The current version of the bill — which narrowly passed the House this week, with almost no Democratic votes — does not contain any new constraints on DHS’ lawless behavior. And it provides more — not less — money for ICE than the last full DHS budget negotiated by the two parties.

I know our negotiators had a very hard job. I know Republicans dug their heels in because they care more about appeasing their leader than standing up for the Constitution. But Democrats have no obligation to vote for a budget that funds a runaway, immoral agency just because Republicans are so beholden to Trump, they refuse to agree to any reforms. We shouldn’t pretend we are powerless; we aren’t.

We should demand that SOME reforms be built into the DHS budget before we vote for it. I’m not naive — I know this budget will not cure every problem or fully end the parade of horrors and lawlessness. But there are meaningful reforms we could implement. Congress could require warrants for arrests. It could return CBP to its actual mission — protecting our border. It could require a return to prior hiring practices and increase identification requirements or mandate consequences for violent conduct. It could suspend funding for DHS if they keep denying Members of Congress access to facilities. These reforms aren’t cure-alls, but they would save lives.

Pearsall Detention Center in Pearsall, Texas.

On the first night of my visit to Texas, I sat with two boys who had, just hours before, been released from an ICE prison. They were in the facility in Dilley, Texas that I had just been denied access to. It’s called “baby jail” by locals, since it holds most of the young children who have been swept up in raids. It’s a barbaric place, which is why I wanted to see it.

The eyes of these two elementary school-age boys were hollow. Only once did the younger boy’s eyes fill up with tears, when his father described in detail the conditions of their incarceration. The older boy stared straight ahead for the entire hour we were together. He looked alive on the outside, dead on the inside.

They had spent Christmas in jail. They called their mother every few days in the lead up to Christmas, begging her to get them out. They worried every day that their friends at school had forgotten about them.

They were not “illegal immigrants”. Their father brought them here legally. They crossed the border and immediately presented themselves to authorities to apply for asylum. The boys and their father were whisked away to jail when they checked in during a required court visit (like thousands of other immigrants who have been disappeared, they were playing by the rules). ICE could have just taken the father (which would have still been illegal). But they took the little boys too — just for the purpose of traumatizing them.

Their mother dropped them off that morning for the check in, their school backpacks in the backseat. She waited for them to return. She waited. She waited. And they didn’t come back for six weeks. Six weeks that have likely poisoned those poor boys’ brains forever.

That night, across from the boys sat their friend from school. He looked to be about 10 years old. He knew they were coming to meet a Senator, to tell their story, and he wanted to be there with them.

The boys worried their friends had forgotten them. But actually, the opposite was true. After the brothers were taken, that friend noticed the boys were absent from school day after day. He remembered they were in immigration proceedings. And so he told his teacher and his mom. And those adults reached out to a local legal aid clinic who tracked down the family in Dilley and eventually helped get the boys out of prison.

No, their friend hadn’t forgotten about them. Their friend knew they were in trouble. He decided he wasn’t powerless. Even at 10 years of age. And so he decided to rescue them.

A lesson the Senate could and should choose to learn. Before it’s too late.

Every best wish,

Chris

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