Faith leaders and community members completed a four-day, 90-mile walk from the Dilley immigration-detention facility to San Antonio. Organized by the Rev. Dianne Garcia of Roca de Refugio Church, the march called for the release of children and parents in federal immigration custody and an end to family detention. Participants walked approximately 25 miles each day. On the final morning, they gathered for prayer and song near the memorial marking where 53 migrants died inside an overheated tractor-trailer in 2022. Additional supporters joined the march as it approached San Antonio.
Why It Matters
The march demonstrates residents using a sustained, peaceful and physically demanding public action to make child and family detention visible. The march leader's congregation had been directly affected by immigration arrests and deportations, so the march connected national policy to identifiable families in a local community. It also gave people who were not themselves detained a way to advocate publicly for children and parents with limited ability to speak or organize outside detention.