Norma Martinez

President Donald Trump campaigned on overhauling immigration in the U.S. and these past four years have proved his determination. From a travel ban on refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, to Migrant Protection Protocols.

A new report from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) details 400 executive actions issued by the president that have effectively reshaped immigration in America.

Mexico’s political history is one of upheaval. From the time the country declared its independence from Spain at the turn of the 19th century, to the Mexican Revolution that drove thousands of Mexicans to the U.S. in order to escape the conflict that cost over 1 million lives.

Today, the power struggle continues in a new form — one of assassinations, kidnappings and drug cartels that have shaped Mexico’s recent history.

Alex Aviña researches 20th century Mexico and is the author of Specters of Revolution:  Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside.

A public health order issued in late-March by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention barred unauthorized migrants from entering the U.S. The order cited concerns over the “introduction” of an infectious disease to the country, which in this case, is COVID-19. What was an initial effort to contain the spread of the pandemic has since thrown the U.S. asylum process into disarray.

Three reporters — from the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso and Mexico City — took a deep dive on how this CDC order affects the lives of asylum-seeking migrants by examining how it’s being implemented along the Texas-Mexico border.

The coronavirus pandemic has pummeled the U.S. economy and set record-high unemployment rates. But while tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs — including 2.9 million Texans — the nation’s billionaires have seen their collective wealth increase.

The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) explored this wealth divide in its new report, “White Supremacy is the Preexisting Condition: Eight Solutions to Ensure Economic Recovery Reduces the Racial Wealth Divide.”

Former El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke rode a blue wave across Texas during the 2018 midterm elections. While O’Rourke ultimately lost to incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz by the narrowest of margins, it was a progressive movement filmmaker Kevin Ford wanted to capture.

Ford’s documentary, The Pushback, chronicles two newly-elected public officials — Congresswoman Veronica Escobar and Councilwoman Natasha Harper-Madison — and shines a light on immigrant rights and institutional racism across the state.

The Latinx vote gets a lot of attention in an election year. Many groups worked against the odds to organize the vote, including the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Mexican American Youth Organization.

UTSA Libraries Special Collections is working to preserve the origins and history of another important voting rights organization: the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.

• Women in Texas have come a long way, but they’re still trailing behind men economically. Dena L. Jackson is the chief operating officer of the Texas Women’s Foundation, which issued a report that examines the economic status of women in the Lone Star State.

• The experience of becoming a U.S. citizen is no quick and easy process. Add a global pandemic to the mix and it completely changes the typical pathway to citizenship, which some have been on for years looking forward to the day they take their oath.

Many recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program collectively took a sigh of relief when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the program last week. But the state of uncertainty that “Dreamers” live in is far from over.

Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of San Antonio and Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, dissect the high court’s decision and discuss what comes next.

When it comes to human trafficking, victims and perpetrators haven’t always been clearly defined within the United States’ legal history.

Annie Isabel Fukushima examines the racist and colonialist history that shaped U.S. trafficking laws and how they impact Asian and Latinx migrants in her book, Migrant Crossings: Witnessing Human Trafficking in the U.S.

Ron Stallworth was the first Black detective for the Colorado Springs Police Department in the 1970s. The former officer infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in 1979, a feat that he memorialized in his best-selling book, Black Klansman.

Stallworth reflected on decades of incidents of police violence against black Americans, including the recent death of George Floyd which has reignited momentum behind the Black Lives Matter movement.