SAN ANTONIO – Faith leaders and advocates completed a four-day, 90-mile walk from Dilley to San Antonio, calling for the release of children and parents held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
The group gathered on Saturday morning near a memorial off Quintana Road on the Southwest Side, where 53 migrants died in a tractor-trailer in 2022.
“We’ve had many people in my community affected by detentions and deportations,” said Rev. Dianne Garcia, pastor of Roca de Refugio Church in San Antonio. “Lots of families are suffering, children have been separated from their parents, children have been put in jail, and that’s really painful for me.”
Garcia said the group walked about 25 miles a day to call for the release of those affected.
“There’s no reason to ever detain children and families in the family detention center here,” Garcia said. “It really serves no purpose other than to create suffering.”
Participants opened the morning with song and prayer.
“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t sore,” Garcia said. “But I also feel really energized. I just felt so much love.
“There’s so many people joining in,” Garcia continued. “So many people really care about this issue, and that has really renewed my hope.”
KSAT has been following ICE’s presence in San Antonio, which is expected to grow after acquiring a facility on the East Side to hold detainees. The site will function as a “very well-structured” detention facility, according to ICE.
State and local Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security pushing back on the expansion plans.
Garcia said she believes the current system inflicts lasting damage.
“It’s incredibly difficult, and that kind of destroying of families, that traumatizing of children and mothers is happening because of the detention system,” she said.
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