Reynaldo Leaños Jr.
Reynaldo Leanos Jr. covers immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border for Texas Public Radio.
Prior to joining Texas Public Radio, Reynaldo was a freelance journalist in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas and in New York City. His work has appeared in Public Radio International’s The World and Global Nation, NBC News, NPR’s Latino USA, KUT’s Texas Standard and KUT.
He has an undergraduate degree from Texas State University, where he studied journalism and international studies. Leanos also has a master’s degree from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where he specialized in international reporting.
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The Trump administration has accelerated some efforts to build the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and the president is using the pandemic to justify his push for it. -
Hundreds of asylum-seekers are not getting a chance to make their case in U.S. immigration court. Instead, the migrants are put on planes to Guatemala and told to ask for asylum there.
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At one point a child welfare official threatened to take custody of the kids and families refused to let them go. "I told them I couldn't, that I wouldn't let my kid go," one woman said.
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The asylum-seekers, who were in Matamoros, Mexico, because of the Trump administration's Migrant Protection Protocols policy, said they faced violence and harassment because they identify as LGBTQ.
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Attorneys for the organization say vulnerable populations are supposed to be excluded from the groups of asylum-seekers being sent back to Mexico to wait for their U.S. immigration court hearings.
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In Matamoros, Mexico, volunteers have created a pop-up school on a downtown sidewalk for migrant children. They're all asylum-seekers waiting for their day in U.S. immigration court.
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An FBI agent calls it "an incredibly heartbreaking situation." Three of the deceased were children — one toddler and two infants — and the other was a 20-year-old woman.
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The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its detention facilities in response to an influx of migrants from Central America arriving at the southern border.
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"We'll try to bring joy, positivity, beauty, drag, culture to whatever this is," Beatrix Lestrange said, pointing to the section of the border fence directly behind her.
