New Orleans, August 15 (RHC)-- In the U.S., NBC News is reporting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is holding more than 8,000 migrants in 13 new jails in Mississippi and Louisiana.  This would be a nearly fourfold increase since late 2017.  It’s believed to be the largest population of ICE detainees outside of Texas.

Meanwhile, in Pasadena, California, hundreds of protesters rallied outside a federal appeals court, calling on judges to uphold an injunction against President Donald Trump’s attempts to end TPS, or temporary protected status, for more than 300,000 immigrants. 

The injunction was ordered last October by a U.S. district judge, who ruled that Trump’s move to cut off protections to people from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Syria may have had a “discriminatory purpose.” 

Earlier this week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals considered the Trump administration’s challenge to that order.   Martha Arevalo, director of the Central American Resource Center, told reporters: “This is just a temporary fix to make sure that families are not separated and that children, like the little girl you saw here today, don’t have to make the choice whether to live without their parents in their country or to live in exile just so they could be with their parents. That is not justice.  That is not the American values and principles that we have been sold. That is not right.”