Jalen McKee-Rodriguez

Jalen McKee-Rodriguez has represented District 2 on the San Antonio City Council since June 2021. A graduate of the University of Texas at San Antonio, he was a City Year AmeriCorps member and taught math at Sam Houston and Madison high schools before taking office. He was the first openly gay man elected to the San Antonio City Council.

What DI has documented

DI has documented statements by Jalen McKee-Rodriguez on Federalism and Immigration Policy. Read the quotations, original sources and related cases below.

Topics in this coverage

Statements by Jalen McKee-Rodriguez

Jalen McKee-Rodriguez

Role at the time: San Antonio City Council member for District 2, which includes the warehouse site

Condemned

Response to this claim

DHS and ICE violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act by buying the Loop 410 warehouse and awarding a contract to convert it into a detention facility without an environmental review.

“Whether you call it a detention center or a processing center, our community does not want a concentration camp anywhere in our country, much less our city”
Open source (opens in a new tab)City of San Antonio files lawsuit over ICE detention facility on East SideFull article
Why we used this label

The reference point is DHS and ICE's plan to convert the warehouse at 542 SE Loop 410 into an immigration detention facility without first completing an environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. He says that whatever the facility is called, the community does not want "a concentration camp" in the city, so we labeled it Condemned. The closest competing label is Challenged the characterization, since he sets aside the processing center label; it loses because he rejects the facility itself.

A participant is a subject of the case. A speaker has a statement documented in it. A commentator has an opinion or editorial documented in it.