Engelbrecht, Cora. “Fewer Immigrants Are Reporting Domestic Abuse. Police Blame Fear of Deportation.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 June 2018. Web.

Journalist and video editor for the NY times Cora Engelbrecht shines a perpetual light on a very daunting yet imperative issue that according to her is not only in high occurrence today but indeed on the rise. Clarifying, Engelbrecht uncovers the arduous cycle that illegal immigrants face – that they essentially have no voice, primarily victims of abuse. The outset of the matter in Houston, Engelbrecht initiates her article with the story of a victim named Domenica, one of many of illegal immigrants, based in one of the many immigration meccas in the US. Engelbracht includes Domenica’s exclamation, that because she is victim of serious abuse in her household, she in fact sleeps with a gun at night. The issue arises when she indeed has nowhere to turn, and in fear of her children and deportation, endures the abuse and silences herself. Domenica, who is referenced by Engelbrecht, is one of a multitude of women who are voiceless because of stricter immigration laws implemented by President Trump. Engelbrecht demonstrates this with a growing statistic that the Chief of the Houston police department acknowledges to be a “Scene that is happening all the time.” The author follows up the Chiefs acknowledging statement with the scary fact, that “the city last year saw a 16 percent drop in domestic violence reports from the Hispanic community.” With this being said, the question that later drew the conclusion of abuse of illegal aliens in the U.S, was how were immigration hotspots such as Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Denver, and San Diego that had growing Latino communities, up to 44% composition of the population in some cities, had reported drops in reports of domestic abuse, some up to 16%? The answer, later evaluated by Engelbrecht, is justified to be because of fear to report the domestic abuse, and impending trepidation of deportation that looms to be the basis of why women are facing the ends of the barrel when it comes to freedom or safety. Encompassing her main points that are manifested, Engelbrecht implicated in her research a new law, FD4 that was indeed proposed to the immigration hubs of Texas that was later overturned by the cities of Austin, Dallas, and Houston, among others. FD4 had mandated that all local officials must report detaining requests, and if not could face serious fines and prosecution. Engelbrecht includes the information provided by Chief of Houston Police, Chief Acevedo, who in fact encourages women who fall victim to abuse to report illegal activity imposed by their significant other. Engelbrecht includes his response, “‘We’re not interested in somebody’s immigration status,’ Chief Acevedo said at a news conference in March…’If a person is a victim of a crime or a witness to a crime, we want them to understand that this department, this D.A., our mayor, our community, stands with victims and witnesses of crime.’” Through many of the examples given, Engelbrecht strengthens my main thesis, how men exploit women who are voiceless. As described in the ever-growing heinous issue of abuse, Engelbrecht enforces that there must be a solution to the abuse these women with no voice be proposed.