Laurie Cook Heffron, PhD & Esmeralda Rubalcava Hernandez
Across the U.S., immigrant communities face threats of detention without due process and policies that criminalize migration. In Texas, Operation Lone Star has become the blueprint for sweeping anti-immigration efforts that are being adopted across the country.
In this powerful episode of inSocialWork, we speak with social work scholars Laurie Cook Heffron and Esmeralda Rubalcava Hernandez. They tell us about immigration policy in Texas under Operation Lone Star and the long social, historical and political landscape that laid the groundwork for our national programs today. They expose the human and economic tolls of criminalized immigration and offer concrete ways social workers can resist and respond.
From Know Your Rights campaigns and mutual aid networks to rethinking the role of social workers in carceral systems, this conversation challenges us to dream bigger and act in solidarity.
Laurie Cook Heffron, PhD, LMSW, is associate professor and social work program director at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. Her work centers on violence, migration and the intersection of immigration and gender.
Esmeralda J. Rubalcava Hernandez, LMSW, is a Chicana community organizer, social worker and PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her work draws from anti-colonial, abolitionist and community-based frameworks rooted in lived experience.
Show Notes
Cite this podcast – Sobota, P. (Host). (2025, August 19). Building Bridges, Not Walls: Resisting Anti-Immigrant Policy (No. 339)[Audio podcast episode]. In inSocialWork. University at Buffalo School of Social Work.
Would you be willing to participate in a research study on Texas social worker experiences interacting with police and/or immigration enforcement while working with Black, Indigenous, and/or Latine communities? Or a study on Student perceptions of their social work programs, police, and immigration enforcement? Learn more below –
