Hurricane Dolly, a category 2 storm in the Gulf, made landfall in South
Texas and Northern Mexico today, forcing Brownsville and surrounding
areas to evacuate.  But immigrant communities in the region have
something else to fear besides the 100 mile-per-hour winds – during a
mock evacuation drill earlier this year, border patrol practiced
checking the immigration status of would be evacuees.   This sparked
trepidation and outrage by Immigrant Rights Groups, who filed a
petition in federal court asking border patrol to clarify their
policy.  Jim Harrington, the Director of the Texas Civil Rights
Project, talks about the suit and how immigrant communities are faring
during the current evacuation. The organization is one of the
plaintiffs in the lawsuit asking border patrol to clarify their policy
on checking immigration status during disaster evacuations.  They
expect a ruling by early next week.

Click here for newscast for Wednesday, July 23, 2008