It is a ghost town. His name is Ridge, and is in Texas (United States), very close to the border with Mexico. The majority of the neighbors and owners of the shops have left or closed their businesses. All are migrants, some with papers and others do not, but they are all afraid of deportation since the customs immigration and control service (ICE) has arrested up to 117 people Only this week.
The consequences of this raid, which is part of the migratory policy of the country since the arrival of Donald TrumpIt has been that this town becomes something more similar to an abandoned people. And it is not the only one. This is also happening in other places in the United States, also near the border, such as Arizona or Los Angeles.
Empty streets that nobody walks, business is closed … No one dares to leave home, because if they do they can be arrested by border patrols, as the neighbors themselves reflect: “It scares me,” says Coral, owner of a street taquería in Texas, to American television ABC News. She believes that she will end up closing due to lack of customers.
“Large Scale Criminal Investigation”
Colony Ridge, on the outskirts of Houston, is one of the most guarded villages Having a high percentage of migrants, although now it looks like an abandoned city, as attest to César Espinosa, a neighbor of the town: “You will see areas that have become ghost villages,” he explains.
The Guard seeks undocumented people to stop and this makes many miss their work and local businesses remain. It is not for less. Federal authorities say this has only been the “phase one” of a “Large Scale Criminal Investigation”. The Governor of Texas has brought breast out of his arrests and the border tsar speaks of “operation against criminals.”
According to resident testimonies of the area and activists to EFE, the agents placed vehicle seals in the main roads of the community, arrested people in their homes and visited Latin businesses – as bakeries or mechanical workshops – warning them that the Government will inspect the legal status of workers.
This antimigration fever even leads to unjustified arrests, such as Nicolás, a citizen who was arrested because his name coincided with that of an ex -exonvict: “It is not fair. He is devastating. They are destroying families,” explains Lorraine, his wife. Neither she nor her daughters have heard from him again since then.
Colony Ridge has been in the focus of the attention of the Republican party for at least two years, after a shooting that left five dead and was committed by a man who did not have a immigration status in the country, EFE points out.
The operation is part of a national campaign, led by President Donald Trump, to stop people living in the US without a legal immigration status and comply with the promise of “mass deportations“That he raised him to power. Only in the first week the ICE stopped at least 2,382 undocumented immigrants and studied 1,797 arrest warrants against citizens that can be deported, according to their own figures.
Source: Lasexta
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