A Texas Cop Signed on to Help ICE Deport His Neighbors. It Tore the Town Apart.
Co-published with The New York Times Magazine This article is a partnership between ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine. This story is exempt from our Creative Commons license until Nov. 25. The new patrol officer parked his black Dodge Charger outside a house off Main Street and approached on foot. A Mexican ballad was playing. Someone had called in a noise complaint, claiming it sounded as if people were fighting. But as the officer, Jaron Alexander, got closer, he found nothing of the sort. A middle-aged woman greeted him as her daughter, Joanna Martinez, petite and visibly pregnant, looked on. “What kind of party are you all having?” she remembers him asking. Behind her were three generations of an extended family. They were celebrating a 3-month-old’s baptism over pozole verde, horchata and beers. Alexander ran some IDs and found no issues. The music wasn’t even that loud…
