In recent years, the Texas Legislature has focused increasingly on immigration enforcement at the border and across the state. Texas’s Operation Lone Star (OLS) launched in 2021 and has deployed thousands of law enforcement personnel to the border, making use of state laws, such as trespassing and smuggling, to engage in immigration enforcement. OLS has radically shifted the way that state and local laws are applied to immigrants and border communities, has resulted in racial profiling, and has led to the deaths of dozens of people through high-speed chases and dangerous border barrier infrastructure. During the 3rd and 4th Special Sessions of the 2023 Legislative Session, the Legislature responded to the Governor’s call to expand Operation Lone Star and passed 3 anti-immigrant bills that will have a disproportionate impact on BIPOC immigrant survivors of gender-based violence.

Houston Public Media reporter Aurora Berry interviewed Casey Carter Swegman, Tahirih Director of Public Policy, about the challenges faced by immigrant women who experience harassment and exploitation in the workplace. […]

The Tahirih Justice Center is outraged by the news that the administration appears willing to play politics with human lives. These attacks on immigrants and people seeking asylum represent not simply a broken promise, but a betrayal and we urge the President and Congress to reverse course.

As a bipartisan group of Senators negotiate a supplemental funding deal that includes harmful changes to asylum law, Casey Carter Swegman, Director of Public Policy at the Tahirih Justice Center, issued a statement.

The ability to work legally in a safe and fair workplace protected by federal regulations is critical for all immigrants applying for legal status. Access to a work permit (also […]

Imagine being forced to marry as a child, having your innocence, dreams, goals, aspirations, and your entire childhood taken from you. Between 2000 and 2018, this was the harsh reality for over 300,000 minors married in the United States, and most of these cases involved girls marrying adult men, some decades older. Since 2016, a nationwide movement has emerged, leading to reforms in 34 states that either limit or end child marriage.

The Tahirih Justice Center, with pro bono law firm Orrick LLP, is celebrating success in a lawsuit against the U.S. government for its failure to adjudicate long-overdue asylum applications. A […]