A group of migrant fathers being held in the Karnes Detention Center south of San Antonio are complaining about the heavy-handed tactics of the immigration agents, and the effect it's having on their families, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
The men say that on August 15th, ICE agents stormed inside the lockup and forcibly re-separated them from their kids, who were in school at the time.
"The police... ICE... they came to us in riot gear. They treated us like we are some tremendous criminals," one man from Honduras told WOAI's Michael Board through a translator. The man would not give his name over fears of retaliation.
About 15 migrant fathers were taken from Karnes to a different detention center in nearby Pearsall, Texas, where they spent the night and were returned the next day.
Ryan Clough, an attorney for the immigrant rights group RAICES, was told that his clients were transferred due to "disruptive behavior" that caused "safety concerns." He was later told that the migrant men didn't want to "go with the flow," and that this included behavior like "not wanting to take their children to school" and "not wanting to participate in activities."
On a call from inside the detention center, one of the men said through a translator that the raid and the separation is taking a toll on his relationship with his son, and that child's mental stability.
"My son gets up in the middle of the night crying that they might take his dad away again," he said in Spanish.
In a statement, ICE says about 40 men detained at the Karnes Center were involved in a disturbance. They relied on the help of additional law enforcement resources to control the situation, and as a precautionary measure, instructed all visitors to leave the facility.
"No children housed at KCRC were involved in this incident; all were attending school at the time. Sixteen adult male residents were transferred out of KCRC and housed overnight at another facility, but will be returned to KCRC Thursday evening. No one was injured during this incident."