Dying in Detention—and in the Streets: ICE’s Expanding Crisis of Impunity, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. July 11, 2026

Dying in Detention—and in the Streets: ICE’s Expanding Crisis of Impunity

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

July 11, 2026

A disturbing new report by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights documents a rapidly worsening human rights crisis within the United States immigration detention system. During the first 500 days of President Donald Trump’s second administration—from January 20, 2025, through June 4, 2026—52 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. The mortality rate was the highest in more than a decade, nearly four times the rate under the Biden administration and more than double that of Trump’s first term (Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, 2026).

These deaths cannot be explained simply by the growth of the detained population. Although ICE detention expanded to a record of more than 71,000 people in January 2026, deaths increased at a disproportionately higher rate. Medical experts reviewing available records identified disturbing indications of delayed treatment, inadequate care, failures to respond to medical emergencies, and possible preventable deaths. The report also found systematic failures by ICE to disclose sufficient information about deaths, medical treatment, and conditions inside detention facilities (Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, 2026).

The crisis extends beyond detention centers. Recently, on July 7, 2026, an ICE officer fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo as the Houston homebuilder drove his construction crew to a job site. Salgado Araujo had lived in the United States for more than 35 years, had no criminal record, and was reportedly nearing the completion of a process to obtain legal status. He was not the person ICE originally intended to apprehend (Oyekanmi, Brook, & Foley, 2026).

People march through the streets during a vigil for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national fatally shot by a federal immigration agent a day prior, Wednesday, July 8, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Mark Felix)

The Department of Homeland Security asserted that Salgado Araujo attempted to ram an ICE vehicle and endanger an officer. Yet the three men traveling with him have disputed that account, stating through their attorney that no officer stood in front of the van or faced a threat. Federal authorities have released no body-camera footage, photographs, or other evidence substantiating their version of events. The participating officers were not wearing body cameras despite Congress having allocated $20 million for their deployment (Oyekanmi et al., 2026; Santana, 2026).

The rising death toll in detention and Salgado Araujo’s killing are not isolated tragedies. Together, they reveal the consequences of an enforcement system expanding faster than its medical capacity, oversight, transparency, and accountability. A government that deprives people of their liberty assumes a heightened responsibility to protect their lives. A government that authorizes armed agents to conduct raids in unmarked vehicles must also ensure that lethal force is independently investigated and publicly accounted for.

Immigration status does not nullify a person’s humanity, right to medical care, or right to life. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo deserved to arrive safely at work. Those held in ICE detention deserve to emerge alive. Their families deserve answers—and the public must demand them.

References

Human Rights Watch, & Physicians for Human Rights. (2026, June 25). Dying in detention: Rising deaths in an expanding US immigration detention system. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/report/2026/06/25/dying-in-detention/rising-deaths-in-an-expanding-us-immigration-detention-system

Oyekanmi, L., Brook, J., & Foley, R. J. (2026, July 10). Detainees tell their lawyer an ICE officer shot a Houston driver through a passenger window, Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/ice-shooting-houston-lorenzo-salgado-araugo-10cf77f29d4559f0f3796342b946031a

Santana, R. (2026, July 10). DHS was granted $20M for body cameras. ICE agents in fatal Houston shooting had none, Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/cameras-body-worn-houston-shooting-ice-immigration-trump-aa316992c75fcd919726afc4db6f4098

Dying in Detention: Rising Deaths in an Expanding US Immigration Detention System

In the 500 days between President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025 and June 4, 2026, 52 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in the United States. The mortality rate of deaths in ICE custody is at its highest level in over a decade and has more than doubled since Trump’s second term began. The rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration, and more than two and a half times as high as that of the first Trump administration. The current trend-level rate is now even higher than during the Covid-19 pandemic. Urgent action is needed to address this crisis and prevent further deaths.

The second Trump administration launched an aggressive campaign to expand immigration detention, pushing the number of people held to a record high of over 71,000 people in January 2026. The surge in deaths is much worse than what one would expect even considering the much higher number of people in detention. Deaths in ICE custody have increased at a rate disproportionate to the growth in the detained population. January 2025- January 2026 saw an approximately 140 percent increase in the annual mortality rate compared to the prior year.

 to expand Image

Graphic © 2026 

Methodology

This report draws on two overlapping bodies of analysis. The statistical analysis covers all 52 deaths in ICE custody over the first 500 days of the second Trump administration, from January 20, 2025 to June 4, 2026, and compares the mortality rate with data spanning the past two decades. The medical and human rights analysis focuses on the 39 deaths reported in the first 12 months of the second term, from January 20, 2025 to January 19, 2026, the period for which case documentation was available at the time of review. Medical experts from Physicians for Human Rights assessed the clinical circumstances preceding each death and the adequacy of care described in available documentation, including supplementary medical records in two cases. Human Rights Watch conducted interviews with family members, attorneys, and former cellmates of the deceased.

Findings: Deaths in ICE Detention Indicate Violations of ICE Policy and International Human Rights Law

Under international human rights law, the state has an obligation to respect and ensure the right to life. When a government detains a person, it has a heightened obligation to protect their rights, and to this end must provide adequate health care and other protections. In the case of a death in custody, the government should also provide all relevant information to the family, including medical reports and investigations into the death.

Failure to Ensure Transparency and Public Accountability for Deaths

ICE policy requires public disclosure of a death of a person in custody within 48 hours and more detailed public reporting of the facts and circumstances surrounding the death within 30 days. Physicians for Human Rights found that, in all 39 cases, the government did not publicly provide sufficient information about the circumstances of death or about the medical care provided in detention to support a definitive clinical assessment. The available documentation was often scant, but it was nonetheless sufficient to identify serious concerns about the care provided.

The lack of medical information in published government records, including about medical care requested and provided, severely limits external medical expert review. The government has systematically failed to report deaths in custody in a timely and comprehensive way, and to be transparent about the medical care provided during detention.

The family of one man who died in ICE custody in 2025 has been trying to access additional records on his case. His mother is desperate to know more about the care he received and the conditions he was held in before his death, and wants access to any available surveillance footage. “What I want is for them to investigate,” she told Human Rights Watch.

Evidence of Inadequate or Delayed Care

Based on available information, Physicians for Human Rights medical experts had a high suspicion of inadequate or delayed health care in several of the 39 deaths that occurred during the first year of the current administration, raising serious concerns that the deaths may have been preventable.

Examples of the types of circumstances and clinical details that raise concerns that a death may have been preventable include: worsening respiratory symptoms without intervention until the person was found unresponsive; people who did not have more frequent medical evaluations when they had known hypertension and worsening symptoms such as headaches; individuals who died from sepsis and had known risk factors for sepsis (such as an immunocompromised state or indwelling central venous catheter) but no blood cultures drawn or antibiotics given when febrile; cases where contradictory medical instructions were given to patients; and delays in starting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for persons found unresponsive.

In one case, Maksym Chernyak, a 44-year-old man from Ukraine, suffered a stroke in detention. Despite having clear signs of an emergency including seizure-like movements and non-reactive dilated pupils, detention facility staff failed to ensure appropriate emergency medical care. Delays in getting him to higher level medical care almost certainly contributed to his death.

In another case, Ismael Ayala-Uribe, a 39-year-old Mexican citizen, reportedly died from cardiac arrest that PHR assessed likely arose from overwhelming septic shock. His repeated attempts to obtain appropriate medical help for an infected abscess were recurrently mishandled.

Santos Banegas Reyes, a 42-year-old Honduran citizen, was “cleared for detention within two hours of arrival” despite being identified during medical intake as being in active alcohol withdrawal. ICE’s reporting on Banegas Reyes fails to identify why he was not sent to a hospital for care or, at a minimum—as would be the standard of care for someone with unknown risk of future severity of withdrawal and thus with potential to progress to life-threatening withdrawal—observed more closely within the detention center’s medical unit. He was found unresponsive in his cell during morning count the day after his arrival and was declared deceased shortly after.

The facts of these and other cases suggest that the United States is failing to meet its obligations to respect and ensure the right to life and to ensure adequate health care in detention.

In addition to such cases, the high number of people who died by apparent suicide in detention is also a serious concern. According to ICE records, seven people died by apparent suicide from January 20, 2025 to January 19, 2026. This compares to one reported death by suicide in 2024.[1] In a custodial environment, the state has significant capacity to monitor wellbeing and safety, and to prevent and respond to attempted suicide. The high number suggests that the state may be failing to adequately respond to the risk of suicide.

Poor Conditions of Detention including Inadequate Staffing and Gaps in Health Care

The dramatic rise in the rate of deaths in detention is a foreseeable outcome of the Trump administration’s immigration policies and practices. Drawing on Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch’s decades of experience documenting deaths in detention and patterns of abuse in immigration detention, this report finds that the high numbers of deaths in 2025-2026 are likely fueled by both long-term systemic problems as well as new changes implemented by the second Trump Administration.

Long-term concerns about US immigration detention include poor conditions in detention facilities, such as unsanitary facilities and inadequate food, which contribute to illness and disease. They also include sub-standard health infrastructure and services in detention centers, which contribute to poor quality and delayed medical care for individuals with physical or mental health conditions or a health emergency. There has long been inadequate staffing at detention centers to ensure proper monitoring and responsiveness to individuals in detention, and inadequate and delayed publication of information about detainee deaths, undermining public accountability.

The second Trump administration has exacerbated these problems and created new ones, including:

• Restrictions on legal immigration pathways and the expansion of mandatory detention have swept more people into custody and prolonged their confinement.

• Soaring detention numbers since January 2025 expose more people to poor detention conditions and lead to more crowded facilities, which in turn worsens sanitation concerns and further strains the provision of health care. This report found that most of the 39 deaths occurred in facilities that had significantly elevated population levels in the two weeks leading up to the deaths (as compared with the previous three-year average population in these same facilities);

• The second Trump administration dismantled or rendered ineffective oversight mechanisms for Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency, which were flawed but important mechanisms for preventing and investigating deaths in custody; and

• Changes to the system for processing claims for offsite health care for detained immigrants raise concerns about gaps in health care and coverage.

Violations of ICE Policy, UN Standards, and UN Human Rights Treaties

The United States has obligations to protect the lives and health of those in its custody. The deaths of people in US immigration detention raise concerns that the United States has violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which protects the right to life and obligates states to take steps to safeguard the lives of those in custody. The mistreatment of people in immigration detention contravenes the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Mandela Rules), which, among other things, call for prompt access to medical care and prohibit delays in emergency response, as well as ICE standards on medical care and suicide prevention. Those ICE standards include the requirement that people in detention be able to communicate urgent needs to staff and receive timely responses. Poor detention conditions and the failure to provide adequate medical care can also amount to violations of the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of the ICCPR and the Convention Against Torture (CAT), treaties ratified by United States, as well as the guarantee of humane treatment for people deprived of their liberty under the ICCPR.

Conclusion

For the United States to meet its human rights obligations and prevent more deaths in ICE custody, immediate action is needed to reduce the numbers of people in detention and to improve overall detention conditions, including by using detention only as a last resort. The government should ensure competent medical and mental health screening at intake, ensure adequate medical staffing and resources to those detained equivalent to that available in the broader public community, including mental health care, guarantee uninterrupted access to offsite care, and conduct periodic health assessments. The government should also provide remedies to the families of people whose death resulted from violations of US human rights obligations, restore independent oversight of DHS, and mandate transparent, comprehensive, and timely reporting of deaths and the conditions and decisions that led to them. State and local governments, private detention operators, and UN human rights bodies all have a role to play in upholding these standards.

Shadow Censorship: How Fear Is Rewriting Higher Education in Texas, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Shadow Censorship: How Fear Is Rewriting Higher Education in Texas

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

March 20, 2026

The "shadow censorship" that happened recently at the University of North Texas Denton is not an isolated incident. It is a window into the present—and future—of higher education in Texas. I use the concept of “shadow censorship” to describe a form of indirect, anticipatory suppression of expression in which institutions restrict rights to free speech and expression in response to a perceived political threat rather than any explicit directive. This concept is embedded in a recent blog post that I authored titled, UT’s Gender and Ethnic Studies Shake-Up: Name the Pressures. Name the Politicians. Name the Agenda.

According to leaked transcripts reported by Breeding-Gonzales (2026), the removal of Victor “Marka27” Quiñonez’s exhibit, Ni de Aquí Ni de Allá—meaning "neither from here, nor from there"—was not driven by formal complaints, policy violations, or even clear institutional review. Instead, it was driven by fear—fear of political backlash, fear of legislative retaliation, and fear of losing funding. 

As Dean Karen Hutzel reportedly told faculty, administrators might weather public criticism—but elected officials have the power to “slash programs” and target institutions. That is the governing reality now.

No official ban was issued. No law explicitly required the exhibit’s removal. No formal complaint process appears to have been activated. And yet, the outcome was the same. The exhibit was taken down, windows covered, work was returned. Geez, what a slap in the face to this artist.

This is precisely the kind of institutional behavior that Senate Bill 17 (SB 17) has helped normalize. While SB 17 formally targets diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices and initiatives in Texas public universities, its effects extend far beyond administrative restructuring (Texas Legislature, 2023). It has created a broader climate of surveillance, risk aversion, and ideological scrutiny—one in which anything perceived as politically controversial, particularly around race, migration, gender, or state power, becomes vulnerable.

Quiñonez’s work—particularly his critique of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—entered what Dean Hutzel described as “a different space.” 

That phrase is doing a great deal of work here. It signals a shift from artistic and academic evaluation to political risk calculation. In this “different space,” expression is no longer protected by institutional mission, but evaluated through the lens of potential backlash.

And here is where the censors in the background come into view.

They are not always visible. They do not always issue direct orders. But they are present nonetheless—in legislative hearings, in donor networks, in coordinated political campaigns, in media ecosystems that amplify outrage, and in the demonstrated willingness of state actors to intervene in university governance. Texas lawmakers have already shown they are willing to eliminate programs, restructure institutions, and replace leadership when universities are perceived to be out of alignment with conservative political priorities (Keith & Zickar, 2025; Valenzuela, Unda, & Mena Bernal, 2024).

University administrators are paying attention.

As the transcripts reveal, UNT leadership explicitly referenced recent leadership purges at the University of Texas and Texas A&M as cautionary examples (Breeding-Gonzales, 2026). Faculty were warned to be careful in their speech—even in classrooms—because they might be recorded and targeted. They were told not to expect legal protection from the university if they came under attack. Policies, they were reminded, “are violated constantly” in the current environment.

This is not simply fear, my friends. It is governance through fear.

As Garces et al. (2021) suggest, the emerging prototype of the “censored university” is structured by repressive legalism—where ambiguity in legal norms, combined with the specter of enforcement, constrains institutions from pursuing equity-oriented practices. In such a context, even the inclusion of a Latino artist it had previously courted becomes untenable. 

Under such conditions, universities begin to self-regulate in anticipation of punishment. They retreat strategically. They internalize external control. All they need now is for faculty and students to do the same, however undemocratic or patronizing.

What we are witnessing at UNT is a textbook case of shadow censorship and repressive legalism and the implications are profound.

Today it is a professional artist’s exhibit. Tomorrow it is a graduate student’s thesis. Next, a classroom discussion. A syllabus. A research agenda. When faculty begin to second-guess what can be said, shown, or taught—when students learn that their intellectual and creative work is subject to political veto—we are no longer operating within a system of higher education as a public good. We are operating within a system of managed expression.

The symbolism here also matters. UNT is an Hispanic-Serving Institution. The silencing of a Mexican American artist exploring bicultural identity—ni de aquí ni de allá—is not incidental. It reflects a broader pattern in which knowledge about race, migration, and inequality is increasingly targeted as politically suspect. In this sense, the exhibit’s removal is not just censorship; it is part of a larger project of disciplining which histories, identities, and critiques are permitted to circulate in public institutions.

To be sure, administrators like Dean Hutzel are navigating an extraordinarily constrained environment. Her comments reflect a genuine attempt to “minimize harm” and preserve the college’s long-term viability. But this is precisely the dilemma: when survival requires silence, the institution’s core purpose is already compromised.

Once fear governs, the university—in effect— is already being unmade.

The lesson here is not simply that censorship is happening. It is that it is hard at work to normalize it—rationalized as strategic, necessary, even prudent. And this is the deeper danger of SB 17 and its policy ecosystem. It is not only what the law explicitly prohibits, but what it makes institutions afraid to do.

If we are to defend higher education, we must confront not only overt attacks, but these quieter forms of control. We must name the censors—even when they operate indirectly. And we must refuse the logic that asks universities to trade their intellectual freedom for institutional survival.

Because in the end, a university that cannot defend expression, critique, and truth is not protective at all.

It is getting grotesquely disfigured.

References

Breeding-Gonzales, L. (2026, February 20). UNT dean’s fears of political repercussions led to removal of art exhibit, leaked transcripts show. KERA / Denton Record-Chronicle.

Garces, L. M., Johnson, B. D., Ambriz, E., & Bradley, D. (2021). Repressive legalism: How postsecondary administrators’ responses to on-campus hate speech undermine a focus on inclusion. American Educational Research Journal, 58(5), 1032–1069. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312211027586

Keith, M.G. & Zickar, M.J. (2025). Academic freedom under siege: How state legislatures are reshaping higher education. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 18(3):378-386. doi:10.1017/iop.2025.10024

Texas Legislature. (2023). Senate Bill 17 (88th Legislature).

Valenzuela, A., Unda, M., & Mena Bernal, J. (2024). Disrupting colonial logics: Transformational resistance against SB 17 and the dismantling of DEI in Texas higher education. Ethnic Studies Pedagogies, 3(1), 7–24.

UNT dean's fears of political repercussions led to removal of art exhibit, leaked transcripts show
KERA

By Lucinda Breeding-Gonzales | Denton Record-Chronicle

February 20, 2026 at 4:46 PM CST


Lucinda Breeding-Gonzales / Denton Record-Chronicle Students placed flowers and messages to the University of North Texas leaders during a memorial staged for the canceled exhibit by Victor "Marka27" Quiñonez on Monday outside the UNT CVAD Gallery.



In leaked transcripts of meetings held by leaders of the University of North Texas art school, Dean Karen Hutzel wouldn’t tell faculty or staff who ordered an exhibit closed and removed from a campus gallery. She described the decision as an “institutional directive” in a meeting with faculty, and told college staffers that she was expecting “a media storm.”

Administrators might survive public excoriation, she said. Elected representatives, however, can more readily slash programs, impugn professors and hold state funding over college executives’ heads.

Hutzel discussed administrators’ widespread fears over funding loss, and how those concerns are compounded by leadership purges at the University of Texas and Texas A&M University after ideological clashes with Texas Republicans, who have spent the last two legislative sessions fighting what they say is leftist bias and indoctrination in public education.

Texas public universities have seen curriculums forcibly overhauled by lawmakers, and entire programs have been eliminated because they don’t align with the conservative values of Republican lawmakers in the state house or in Washington.

The UNT College of Visual Arts and Design has been in headlines across the country since it shuttered an exhibit last week by globally known street artist Victor Quiñonez, known broadly by the graffiti tag he developed in east Dallas, Marka27.

The graduate of Dallas’ renowned Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts had an exhibit, “Ni de Aquí Ni de Allá,” open Feb. 3 in the CVAD Gallery. The exhibit explores Quiñonez’s identity as a bicultural and bilingual American. Born in Juarez, Mexico, Quiñonez grew up in east Dallas.

His exhibit, whose title translates to “neither from here, nor from there” included work from his “ICE Scream” series. The work uses a popular Mexican treat, the paleta, to honor his heritage while it considers incarceration and deportation.

He crafted huge, melting paletas out of resin that encase handcuffs and guns. There are official-looking seals that read: U.S. Department of Stolen Land Security, and the phrase U.S. Inhumane and Cruelty Enforcement. Smaller resin paletas encase scenes of Mexican-American life and immigrants, and the words “U.S. Inhumane and Cruelty Enforcement” on the popsicle sticks.

Faculty, students and alumni quickly denounced the removal as censorship, and especially bristled that a Hispanic-serving institution silenced a Mexican-American artist. CVAD students staged a sit-in at the Board of Regents meeting Thursday and warned the regents that the censorship of Quiñonez’s show would hurt confidence in CVAD programming and hurt recruitment.

The Denton Record-Chronicle obtained transcripts of Hutzel’s Feb. 10 meeting with staff at CVAD, and from a Feb. 11 meeting with faculty. The newspaper confirmed with several CVAD faculty members, independently, that CVAD had virtual meetings on Feb. 10 and 11.

In Hutzel’s meeting with faculty, she requested the recording be turned off, and a staff member confirmed that the recording had stopped. In the transcripts, only Dean Hutzel was named. Names mentioned by faculty, department leaders, Hutzel and staff were redacted in the transcripts obtained by the Record-Chronicle.

Hutzel’s message to faculty and staff was both mysterious and clear: The directive didn’t come from CVAD leadership; she couldn’t confirm whether a visitor or viewer lodged any formal complaint about the show, or if any university official saw the exhibit when it opened; and it was Quiñonez’s ICE-related art that led to the exhibit’s removal.

She cautioned faculty and staff from making any public statements and to be careful when talking to students, lest they be recorded and have their remarks posted online. Hutzel said she expected the university’s brand strategy and communications team to issue an approved statement that faculty and staff could use, but that she didn’t plan to respond to media inquiries.

As of Friday morning, it doesn’t appear that the statement has been released, and university officials have only publicly confirmed that the exhibit was closed, a loan agreement with Boston University was terminated, and that the art would be returned.

And perhaps the most ominous warning? Art faculty shouldn’t expect the university’s legal counsel to protect them if they become a target of political ire.

“So, would UNT legal not represent faculty who were basically, like, they have freedom of speech under the Constitution,” a CVAD department official asked. “Would [that] guarantee legal represent a faculty member ... ?”

“They never would have, they never would have,” Hutzel said. “No, it would never have been the case. ... I don’t believe the university is going to deploy their legal counsel to protect an individual faculty member. I don’t think we’ve seen that elsewhere, either. Again, I mean, I’m just being honest. It’s not an absolute answer, but that’s how I understand it. And I just want to be honest in what I understand.”

Hutzel told faculty that university policies “are violated constantly” in the current environment, and that professors and staff shouldn’t rely on policies to be set in stone.

“For UNT, the stakes are high in that, if you’re paying attention to the news, you may have seen what’s happened at, for instance, Texas A&M, and UT in Austin, and the leadership shifts that have happened there,” she said. “And the new presidential leaders that have come into those institutions, and the programs that are now coming out of them are being canceled by those institutions. ... UNT is very vulnerable to a similar situation.”

Hutzel said she has empathy for UNT leaders and seeks to balance that with advocacy for CVAD.

“My ultimate goal is to minimize harm here and to protect CVAD so that we can continue to teach and mentor and create art,” she told faculty. “Even now, when it feels like the conditions are getting more and more constrained. But our ability to preserve our ability to educate students is, for me, not meaning that we’re retreating from our values, but that we’re thinking longer term and how we sustain ourselves.”

The faculty meeting also revealed deep and persistent fears over having students record professors and teaching fellows, and then post recordings online to damage or end their careers. Those fears aren’t unfounded. A Texas A&M professor was fired last September after a student recorded a class discussion about gender identity in children’s literature.

“So, for instance, if you are teaching screen printing, and because the college originally kind of suggested instructors can talk about students about censorship, like, within their classes and have these powerful small group conversations, but if a student records a faculty member discussing or critiquing censorship in a class that does not specifically relate to that, that is another point of vulnerability,” a department chair said, according to the transcript. “And I just wanted to point that out. ... I’m worried about all of us. I’m worried about you. I’m worried about our students, and that’s just something to keep in mind as we have these conversations that like, just remember, you know, you can be recorded, and I hate to spread paranoia, but that is just something that we need to be aware of.”

Hutzel spoke positively about Quiñonez’s art with staff members who hadn’t seen the show before it was closed.

“It was a beautiful exhibit,” Hutzel said. “It represented the artist’s experiences as a Mexican American in this country.”

Hutzel explained that the college made an agreement with Boston University to host the exhibit “at least a year ago,” which is also around the time Texas lawmakers who represent Denton County said they received a high number of complaints about an exhibit at the UNT Union Art Gallery by two Muslim female students. All four representatives demanded that the university close the exhibit because it was antisemitic. The exhibit closed on its scheduled date.

CVAD doesn’t operate or manage the student union gallery.

Hutzel herself didn’t appear to object to the exhibit. She told staff members that Quiñonez’s political pieces were the reason the gallery windows were covered with paper and the art removed.

“... Some of the pieces included what’s deemed as anti-ICE messaging,” she said. “And so ... that topic itself has entered a different space, and so it was that aspect of it that the university leadership became very concerned about ... the political and public response [and] scrutiny across the spectrum.”

One CVAD staff member asked what will happen when students plan to include political expression in solo or group shows.

“Another good question, and it’s one that I’ll be navigating as well [in] some meetings this week,” she said. “I, too, am questioning and concerned with what work we show and if there is a change to that.”

Faculty suggested renting spaces off campus, or partnering with spaces in the community that might host exhibits off campus for Master of Fine Arts candidates. The larger concern was that censorship could eventually reach students.

“If they’re censoring work at a professional level in our home gallery, then faculty and students are going to be next,” a faculty member said. “I don’t want to be alarmist, but I also think it is a lot, you know what I mean? And they’re paying tuition to come here to make work with us, and make the work that they want to make. So, I feel like it’s kind of my responsibility to be honest with them as much as I can. You know what I mean? That’s just my perspective.”

Faculty pressed college leadership on how the closure would affect students who make and show art on campus, asking, “Is it on us to talk to our adjuncts and [teaching fellows]?”

“I don’t know what to tell them,” a department chair said. “And I don’t know what you should tell them. I don’t think anyone has any answers. Like ... maybe if they have questions and come to you, I don’t know that I would recommend setting a meeting to talk about this because, honestly, I don’t know what should be said.”

Others said the removal of the Quiñonez exhibit could hurt recruitment of graduate students, who shoulder instruction for many CVAD programs. And removing the work of a professional artist could hurt faculty recruitment. Hutzel mentioned communicating with a student from California who enrolled in CVAD because she was impressed by faculty art.

“There are going to be hits and implications,” Hutzel said. “And yet, you all are still highly respected as artists in your own right. And that recruits students. It’s because of you all individually. And what you’re doing is what grad students come here for. But it’s going to impact us for a little bit.”

Immigrants' Rights: Know your rights, compliments of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Friends, 

Tragically, we are hearing of a lot of people getting picked up by ICE in our communities. It's important theat people know their rights. 

Here is great information on what your rights are from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that has been carefully developed to help you navigate encounters with law enforcement and immigration officials safely and confidently.

If you’re ever questioned about your immigration status, it’s critical to know your rights—you do not have to answer questions about your citizenship or status, and you absolutely have the right to remain silent. Never lie or present false documents. Remember that you can refuse a search unless there’s probable cause. 

Please take a moment to review this important guidance so you can protect yourself and your loved ones. 

My best suggestion is to go directly to the ACLU website for detailed explanations and various scenarios. 

May our Creator—who sees no borders and draws no distinctions among us—bless and protect you always. These are the hard times.

-Angela Valenzuela


Know your rights

Immigrants' Rights

Regardless of your immigration status, you have guaranteed rights under the Constitution. Learn more here about your rights as an immigrant, and how to express them.

Law enforcement asks about my immigration status

Every American needs to take a history of Mexico class, by Dr. Gabriela Soto Laveaga

Excellent piece! Harvard University professor of the history of science and the study of Mexico, Dr. Gabriela Soto Laveaga, makes a compelling case for why every American should learn about the history of Mexico—presumably in K-12, as well as higher education. After all, our histories are intertwined. It would help us to have a broadened perspective in debates on immigration, race relations, the U.S.-Mexico border, and why so many of us advocate for bilingual education. 

It's pretty incredible that one can earn a college degree and still know precious little about Mexico or Mexican history. Even well-educated people know little more than knowing how to order tequila or Mexican food in a restaurant, as if symbolically consuming Mexicans in this way makes one culturally competent. 

These mindsets are transborder and hemispheric, too, with many Americans regarding Mexico and Latin America as little more than a playground for tourists designed to cater to mostly Anglo Americans, as well as Anglicized ones, who may be of any hue. This posture translates into the gobbling up choice property throughout Mexico, elevating gentrification to a global scale. 

In places throughout Mexico like San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato, one pays for property in U.S. dollars and at least half the city is Anglo. I have many friends from Guanajuato, including from San Miguel, and they can't afford to live there because Anglos have raised the cost of housing as a result of what they call, "colonización," the Spanish term for gentrification (and colonization) that makes it difficult for them to live there, impelling them to migrate to the U.S. 

Once here, they're targeted by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE). Then they become the targets anew of gentrification as their apartments get bulldozed in East Austin, forcing them to vacate and move to the outer rings of the city and county, resulting in long-distance commutes to largely either construction, domestic, or service-sector jobs working in restaurants and hotels throughout our city. Many of these persons have advanced degrees in Mexico that unfortunately count for little here. We work precisely with families like these at our Saturday academy, Academia Cuauhtli.

Instead of being entitled and self-serving and teaching future generations to be so oriented, let's do take up Dr. Soto Laveaga's plea for greater understanding based on a long-overdue, clear reading of the history of Mexico and the Southwest. 

As the Mexican American experience itself suggests, we shall acquire an enhanced understanding of social relations, policies, politics, culture, and how to be better neighbors with a community whose future is caught up with our own in ways big and small. 

-Angela Valenzuela

Every American needs to 

take a history of Mexico class

Learning the history of Mexico can help Americans better understand themselves.

Members of the Sons of the Republic of Texas gather in front of the Alamo Cenotaph monument in San Antonio to commemorate the 184th anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo on March 6, 2020. (Tamir Kalifa for The Washington Post)

By Gabriela Laveaga | Washington Post | July 22, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

The recent backlash over a new book on the history of The Alamo is not about partisanship nor misapplied critical race theory. It is, however, about denying who we are as a nation. More than an erasure of historical fact it is another example of the ongoing and dangerous practice of cherry-picking parts of our past to fit prepackaged national myths. This is not a new practice nor is our society the only one to rewrite history to suit current political winds. Yet denying a serious, factual analysis of our past sabotages the ability to achieve a more just and equal society. If we start our national origins story with historical falsehoods, we will continue to repeat and expand these fictions to make the initial lie make sense.

One way to right this tendency is by studying the role of Mexico and Mexicans in the making of an American identity. It will not solve a concerted effort to refuse historical truths, but it may help us develop critical skills to identify the problems with teaching a single story of American history. Why Mexico? Among other reasons, Mexico lost more than 50 percent of its territory to the United States. Put starkly, much of our country was once Mexico. Analyzing the origins of this territorial gain places current debates about immigration, the border and even what languages can be taught in schools in a broader perspective.

Essayist and Nobel laureate Octavio Paz understood the value of this decades ago when he wrote, “by coming to know Mexico, North Americans can learn to understand an unacknowledged part of themselves.” That unacknowledged part is complicated. Let’s use just one example, the Mexican American War or the U.S. Invasion, as it is known in Mexico, to illustrate how this pivotal event could be taught in American classrooms to expand how we study the actions of our then still-fledgling nation.

While the history of The Alamo is not as consequential for Mexico, Mexican schoolchildren learn that when their country granted Anglo-Americans permission to settle in the sparsely populated territory of Tejas these settlers agreed to abide by the laws of Mexico and were encouraged to learn Spanish, convert to Catholicism, intermarry with Mexicans and, eventually, renounce slavery.

Instead, Anglo-Americans defied all of these expectations. They started by blowing past the cap on the number of Anglo-Americans who could settle in Mexico. That enabled them to outnumber Mexicans in its northern territory. The Americans then refused to follow the laws of the land; in response, Mexico sent troops to patrol its borders, understanding that a faction of Texans were intent on fostering secession from Mexico.

That is the backdrop for the 1836 siege of The Alamo: a country intent on quelling a rebellion of lawless foreigners who had overstayed their welcome in Mexico.

Yet the fate of Texas would not be decided on the battlefield but in Washington, D.C. In 1837 the U.S. recognized Texas as an independent state, fueling the anger of its southern neighbor. A few years later in 1844, James K. Polk ran his presidential campaign on the annexation of Texas, which many in Mexico still considered a rebel territory that was part of their nation.

Part of the dispute was where Texas claimed to draw its border, at the Nueces or the Rio Grande, which would give it an additional 150 miles of territory.

This geographic detail is important. Polk, determined to push for war, claimed that a border skirmish involving Mexican and American troops spilled “American blood on America’s soil.” But this claim was false; the battle happened in this disputed territory. A young congressman from Illinois, future president Abraham Lincoln, objecting to Polk’s lie, introduced the Spot Resolution of 1847, which laid out the evidence that the fight did not happen on American soil.

What if schoolchildren learned to examine Lincoln’s resolution and protests against what he thought was an unjust war? This broader context would show students that national stories are not tidy, they are messy and sometimes brimming with illegal, or at least problematic, acts. It would also teach students to interrogate presidential actions and claims, not simply accept them as fact.

In the past few months, diverse battles over what will be taught in our classrooms have a common denominator: pushback against a triumphalist narrative, which glorifies the actions of one group over another. Studying the Mexican American War can also teach us about the changing roles of race in our country. Specifically, how some ethnic groups that enjoy broad acceptance today were once reviled, such as, for example, the Irish.

One of the most symbolically powerful events of the war is mostly forgotten in the U.S. today. But Mexicans see the U.S. execution of a predominantly Irish regiment — the Saint Patrick’s Battalion — for treason, as a key event in the war.

In the 1840s, the Irish, fleeing famine, arrived destitute, hungry and, as political cartoons of the era show, in droves to the United States. Relegated to low-class jobs and living in crowded ethnic ghettos, the Irish were portrayed as undesirable immigrants with less-than-average intelligence, who were prone to criminality.

Yet when the call went out for an additional 50,000 troops to invade Mexico, immigrants — many of them Irish — answered the call with the hopes of achieving acceptance in the U.S. It did not take long, however, for many Irish to realize that they were fighting an unjust war started on false pretenses. As Catholics, they also sympathized with Mexicans who were appalled at the desecration of churches by the invading American army. Switching allegiances, a battalion of Irish deserted and fought on the Mexican side. While most were captured and hung for treason, today in Mexico you can find memorials to the Irish, considered heroes of the war. Not every Mexican schoolchild will know about The Alamo but they will all know about the Saint Patrick’s Battalion, when a group of unwanted immigrants rose up against a falsehood. In other words, the questions we ask of the past matter.

At the war’s end the U.S. gained the future states of California, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and portions of Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana from Mexico. To carry through with the belief that it was a God-given right to expand from “sea-to-shining sea” Mexicans were transformed into strangers on their own land. The new courts and laws helped take away the rights of Mexicans, setting a legal precedent for making them second class citizens, penalized for speaking Spanish or simply gathering in groups.

To be sure, mandating a history of Mexico class for a fuller understanding of our current society implies that we will have teachers trained and willing to teach a factual past. So far, we have mixed results in that area.

Despite these challenges, expanding our curriculum will enrich the understanding of the next generations of Americans. Borderlands scholar Gloria Anzaldua described the U.S.-Mexico border, a product of the Mexican American War, as an open wound, the marker of a collective and traumatic history that continues to have an impact on the present lives of communities and individuals. Problems, whether these be workers’ rights, migration, declining ground water at the border, economic development or drug trafficking affect both countries and cannot be solved with unilateral decisions. Unilateral histories also do not work.

The past few years have shown us that to remain purposefully ignorant of history is dangerous for democracy. If we move to erase uncomfortable pasts then we remain tethered to fictions.

Gabriela Soto Laveaga is professor of the history of science and the Antonio Madero Professor for the study of Mexico at Harvard University. She is working on a book on agricultural research and water in Sonora and the Punjab.  Twitter