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Task force deems Secure Communities insecure, Austin cries out

A federal task force was recently charged with reviewing the Secure Communities program. And as organizations and citizens alike have long suspected, the task force found that the controversial program actually has an adverse impact on community policing.

The task force’s report was completed this past Friday and released to the Department of Homeland Security. Along with finding that Secure Communities only increases crime, the report also claims that immigrants will be less willing to trust their local police.

Amid national public scrutiny, the Austin non-profit community is intent on halting this flawed program.

As CultureMap reported last month, the Secure Communities program creates the infrastructure for local police to pull over and arrest anyone they suspect to be an undocumented immigrant. Then local police can hold the detained for up to 48 hours, run their fingerprints through the national database, and, if the detained are not U.S. citizens, the local police can transfer them into deportation proceedings.

Secure Communities was intended to deport serious criminals, and thus keep our communities more “secure.” But Austin-based organizations claim the program is problematic, and makes our communities far from it.

An ACLU letter to the Task Force writes, “An ill-conceived program from the start, S-Comm entangles local law enforcement agencies with the enforcement of federal immigration laws, which inevitably drives a wedge between our police officers and those they are sworn to serve.”

And this troubling entanglement has led to a great mistrust in law enforcement.

Under S-Comm, victims of domestic violence or human trafficking will be less likely to trust law enforcement, less likely to report serious crimes, and thus go unnoticed for fear of being deported themselves.

Executive Director of the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition Esther Reyes told CultureMap that the UT student who is now in deportation proceedings has a brother whose truck was stolen. He didn’t report it to the police, because he now doesn’t trust the police.

This case isn’t an isolated incident. Under S-Comm, victims of domestic violence or human trafficking will be less likely to trust law enforcement, less likely to report serious crimes, and thus go unnoticed for fear of being deported themselves.

Worse than leaving the Austin community afraid of local law enforcement, the Task Force found that S-Comm does not even target the serious criminals it meant to.

According to ICE’s own figures, “fully three-quarters of those deported under S-Comm did not meet ICE’s own standard as dangerous aliens; indeed, nearly 25% of those deported were never convicted of any crime, much less a violent one.”

The ACLU’s Advocacy and Policy Counsel Krystal Gomez told me that one reason the program is so flawed is that “some policy officers don’t even know what S-Comm is.” She elaborates that there is a clear lack of communication and education from ICE to local law enforcement.

The result is that, according to Esther Reyes, some local police authorities will take immigrants to jail, but others won’t. And without a uniform policy, local law enforcement officials are left to their own devices.

Considering the growing fervor against the program, Austin organizations are hosting a series of events, reports, and campaigns to ensure that the Austin community stands up for true Secure Communities.

Reyes claims that now is the perfect time to act against S-Comm. As now the program is “in a stage of limbo,” where even though ICE continues to ignore the public’s concerns, the program has yet to be fully institutionalized.

The Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition and the ACLU are both members of a coalition to end Secure Communities. This coalition seeks to agitate and educate the Austin community, and spur it into action.

This evening the coalition will host a forum to do just that. It will reveal some pretty egregious facts about the consequences of S-Comm, host testimony from immigrants negatively affected by the program, and recruit more organizations to join the coalition.

Following the forum, the coalition will convene a second time in October to gather Austin immigrant community members. They also plan to release an ethnographic report in the coming weeks.

As Gomez states, “we hope to build a ground of opposition” to build a stronger coalition and get more people involved. She concludes that with more resources come “more bodies, more brains, more support.”

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San Antonio leads Texas on ending horse-drawn carriage rides by 2030

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Horses will no longer pull carriages on the streets of downtown San Antonio.

San Antonio has pulled off something that the rest of Texas has yet to do, but it didn't come without some contentious conversations. City Council has unanimously voted (with one abstention) to phase out the use of horse-drawn carriages over the next five years. That means by January 1, 2030, there will be none on the streets at all; instead, there will be electric carriages.

These plans have been in the making since 2022 — if not always at the same level of intensity — when District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and District 3 Councilmember Phyllis Viagran wrote up some concerns about the horses' wellbeing. A special session at the end of October 2024 hinted to San Antonians that the end for this practice was neigh — sorry, nigh — and the final vote was made on December 12. In addition to accepting the plan, it extended its timeframe by two years.

The initial proposal included worries about the horses' exposure to traffic and pollution, as well how their presence might exacerbate those issues for the environment at large by slowing traffic. It also raised concerns about the effects of standing or walking on hard surfaces for too long, or spending time in extreme weather.

At the December 12 meeting, San Antonians gave impassioned speeches about animal welfare — both to call attention to the need for better conditions and to defend the reputations and jobs of current horse drivers — but it wasn't the first time the council heard from the public about the issue.

In a prior city survey, 50,476 respondents weighed in. Of those respondents, 51.98 percent said they liked the idea to "Transition horse-drawn carriages to electric carriages and pedicabs and ban horse drawn carriages completely." There were alternative solutions listed, but respondents were less drawn to them.

A cultural divide emerged in the data and continued in the December meeting: some people avoided the carriages because they worried about the treatment of the horses, while others enjoyed them because of their historical echoes and living legacy. Many speakers in favor of the plan used this to form their argument, raising questions about history versus progress.

More tangible objections to the plan hinged on the businesses — specifically five companies — and jobs that would be lost, which was the main factor behind extending the adjustment period.

Discussions about the particulars of the electric vehicles are still to come, as confirmed in the discussion near the end of the meeting. Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez addressed concerns about what would happen to the horses, mentioning the Brady Hunter Foundation as a future partner in finding them rescue homes.

Some council members also brought up rhetorical questions about animal exploitation by groups like Sea World, the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, military and police forces, and even various groups in the Fiesta parade, although these did not come with a formal motion to pick the issues up.

This decision could have a ripple effect on other Texas cities. Dallas has recently considered a similar ban, but it appears to have stalled; Austin's attempts at a ban have been unsuccessful, but according to the Austin-American Statesman, only one operator is permitted to bring horses downtown. She declines to do so because the long hours are unfair to her and the horses. Houston does have horse-drawn carriages, and there seems to be little conversation about banning them.

Cities like Chicago and Salt Lake City have led the charge in the United States with some of the most prominent successful bans. Other cities around the world with bans include Brussels and Guadalajara, which both switched to electric models. Bans that have been around for years, like Guadalajara's and Prague's, still aren't out of the woods — people are still pushing back on the decision, so it sounds like San Antonio still has much work cut out for it.

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