Protests continue outside of facility east of downtown Houston

With feet moving and voices chanting, protestors made their way through east downtown Houston.

“We are going to keep coming out here until we get what we need, which is the federal government and the city to not allow permitting for the baby jail here in Houston,” says FIEL director Cesar Espinosa.

“Well, we won’t stop until every child is reunited," says Texas State Senator Sylvia Garcia. "This has been a bad policy since the start. It doesn’t represent our feelings. It’s not the country we are so we will keep fighting to make sure that every child gets reunited with their family.” 

Talks started weeks ago that the facility on Emancipation Avenue near Prairie Street might be used to house children that had been separated from their undocumented immigrant parents. With the deadline up to reunite them, some are still worried the building might be used, while others feel confident it won’t be due to a lack of permits.

“It is still not licensed by the state and it still doesn’t have an occupancy license from the city, so it’s not functioning yet, so we will keep fighting to make sure that it does not open,” says Senator Garcia.

“We feel positive now in the sense that there are no kids here but we still very uncertain as to when this is going to happen so we need to make sure that we keep the pressure up so that they don’t sneak in the babies in the middle of the night,” says Espinosa.

Walking alongside a marching State Senator Garcia, she tells FOX 26 News that the protestors will continue to show up and have their voices and wants heard.

“We’ve been fighting since the beginning," adds Sen. Garcia. "We continue to fight. We don’t want this facility here in Houston and we don’t want any of these facilities. The policy must stop. We have to keep families together and we need to have a more humanitarian system to deal with this issue.”

According to the Trump administration, there are more than 700 children that are still separated from their undocumented immigrant parents.