David Xol and his 7-year-old son, Byron, spent three days in a wooden crate on their way to the U.S. in May. After being separated from his son at the border, Xol was sent back to a remote village in the highlands of Guatemala. He has no idea when Byron is coming home.
David Yaffe-Bellany
David Yaffe-Bellany was a 2018 reporting fellow at the Tribune. He graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in English and served as managing editor of the Yale Daily News. He previously reported for the New Haven Independent and the Toledo Blade, covering city politics, crime and the occasional cornhole tournament. His bylines have also appeared in the soccer magazine Howler, the sports website Deadspin and the Columbia Journalism Review.
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Families Divided
Asylum-seekers say they cross the border illegally because they don’t think they have other options
Asylum-seekers start on the path to an illegal crossing long before they actually reach the banks of the Rio Grande, relying on advice from an informal network of well-meaning friends and often-unscrupulous smugglers.
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Families Divided
“It’s humiliating”: Released immigrants describe life with ankle monitors
The devices are a better option than detention, but they disrupt almost every aspect of daily life, from sleeping and exercising to buying groceries and getting a job, according to more than a dozen attorneys, immigrant advocates and Central American asylum-seekers.
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Politics
Illegal border crossings drop for second month in a row
Homeland Security Press Secretary Tyler Houlton hailed the numbers as evidence that the Trump administration’s recent crackdown at the border has deterred immigrants from trying to cross into the country illegally.
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Families Divided
Immigration “loophole” that Trump bemoaned returns after zero tolerance rollback
A head-spinning sequence of events appears to have put the Trump administration right where it started: running a “catch and release” immigration system in which families crossing the border illegally stay in the country as the government processes their asylum claims.
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Politics
On the campaign trail, Democrat running for agriculture commissioner reckons with her past
Kim Olson, who is running to unseat Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, is a veteran, farmer and outspoken feminist. But will an episode from her past derail her candidacy?
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Texas Elections 2018
Surge of candidates leaves Texas Democrats struggling to recruit qualified staffers
The uptick in the number of Democrats running across Texas this election cycle has exposed a weakness in the party’s statewide apparatus: a shortage of experienced operatives equipped to run campaigns.
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Energy
As Trump backlash continues, STEM professionals in Texas run for office
Across the country, hundreds of candidates with academic or professional experience in science, technology, engineering and mathematics have left their businesses and laboratories to compete in state legislative contests, congressional elections and even governor’s races.
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Families Divided
Immigrant parents reckon with Trump’s changing policies at the border
When President Donald Trump issued an executive order two weeks ago ending family separations, Evelyn Becerra heard the news and decided to leave Guatemala with her 2-year-old daughter.
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Families Divided
Next to a shelter holding immigrant children, church’s congregants defend family separations
Congregants at Harlingen’s Lighthouse Fellowship Church — located just yards away from one of the largest shelters for immigrant children in Texas — said the president was right to split up families who entered the country illegally.