Ingram, a town of about 1,900 people beside the Guadalupe River, was rebuilding after a flood when its small police department joined U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's 287(g) program, according to a joint report by ProPublica and The New York Times. The report says local officers would hand over the equivalent of 10% of the town within a year.
The report centers on patrol officer Jaron Alexander, one of more than 29,000 local officers involved in the Trump administration's deportation campaign. It is based on eight conversations with Alexander over four months. It describes his first encounter with resident Joanna Martinez in October last year, when he responded to a noise complaint at a family baptism party and found no problems.
The report says later stops followed. Alexander pulled over a work truck that rolled through a stop sign, and Martinez asked him to let her friends go, which he did not do. He also stopped a driver who turned out to be her cousin and handed him over to immigration agents. Martinez says Alexander stopped her weeks before she gave birth and warned her about illegal window tint.