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Immigrants Fearing Deportation Under Trump Change Routines


1In Orange County, California, dozens of immigrant parents have signed legal documents authorizing friends and relatives to pick up their children from school and access their bank accounts to pay their bills in the event they are arrested by immigration agents.

In Philadelphia, immigrants are carrying around wallet-size “Know Your Rights” guides in Spanish and English that explain what to do if they’re rounded up.

And in New York, 23-year-old Zuleima Dominguez and other members of her Mexican family are careful about answering the door and start making worried phone calls when someone doesn’t come home on time.

Around the country, President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S. have spread fear and anxiety and led many people to brace for arrest and to change up their daily routines in hopes of not getting caught.

In El Paso, Texas, Carmen Ramos and her friends have developed a network to keep each other updated via text messages on where immigration checkpoints have been set up.

She said she also is making certain everything she does is in order at all times. She checks her taillights before leaving the house to make sure they are working. She won’t speed and keeps a close eye on her surroundings.

“We are surprised that even a ticket can get us back to Mexico,” said the 41-year-old Ramos, who with her husband and three children left Ciudad Juarez because of drug violence and death threats in 2008 and entered the U.S. on tourist visas that have since expired. “We wouldn’t have anywhere to return.”

An undocumented Guatemalan migrant mother and her son have called an Austin, Texas, church home for more than a year. Hilda Ramirez says they were fleeing the danger of their country and were caught by immigration authorities as they illegally crossed the border at Texas in 2014. After they were released from a holding facility, a pastor allowed them to live on church grounds.

The unease among immigrants has been building but intensified in recent weeks with ever-clearer signs that the Trump administration would jettison the Obama-era policy of focusing mostly on deporting those who had committed serious crimes.

The administration announced Tuesday that any immigrant in the country illegally who is charged with or convicted of any offense, or even suspected of a crime, will now be an enforcement priority. That could include people arrested for shoplifting or other minor offenses, or those who simply crossed the border illegally.

Some husbands and wives fear spouses who lack legal papers could be taken away. And many worry that parents will be separated from their U.S.-born children.

Dozens of immigrants have been turning up at an advocacy group’s offices in Philadelphia, asking questions like, “Who will take care of my children if I am deported?” They also are coached on how to develop a “deportation plan” that includes the name and number of an attorney and other emergency contacts in case of arrest.

An organization in Austin, Texas, that runs a deportation hotline said it normally would receive one or two calls every few days. After recent immigration raids, the phone rang off the hook.

“We got over 1,000 phone calls in three days about the raids,” said Cristina Parker, immigration programs director for Grassroots Leadership. “And certainly a lot of those were people who wanted information about the raids saying, ‘I’m scared, I’m worried, what can I do?’… A lot of them were people who were impacted by the raids who saw a friend or family be taken.”

Immigrants in the Chicago area have said they are scared to drive, and some are even wary of taking public transit. When Chicago police and federal authorities conducted regular safety checks on a train line earlier this month, many assumed it was an immigration checkpoint.

Word spread so quickly that Chicago police issued a statement assuring immigrants, “You are welcome here.”

In Arizona, immigrant Abril Gallardo said the policies have prompted new conversations with her parents and siblings. Her father, who’s in the country illegally, made sure all the taillights work in the van he drives to his construction job in the Phoenix area. They look through the window if anyone knocks.

Her brother is getting married this weekend, and immigrant friends were reluctant to drive to the bridal shower.

“We have a regular life, but with this new executive order, anyone, just for the fact that you’re here, you can become a priority,” said Gallardo, 26, who is in the U.S. with permission under the Obama administration policy for people who entered illegally as children.

In the Bronx, Dominguez, a college student protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, is looking into what she needs to do to raise her American-born brother and sister, ages 6 and 11, if their parents are deported.

When Dominguez goes out, she tells the others where she is going, with whom, and when she will be home, and expects the same from her parents and siblings. If someone is late getting home, she said, “we start calling.”

(AP)



4 Responses

  1. Here come the intellectually challenged liberals to claim this is discrimination, and is unfair to the immigrants.

    The “know your rights” thing they have in their pockets excludes one simple instruction. “How to Apply for Citizenship”. They want the benefits of the American taxpayers without contributing to the funds in any way. Is there someone with brains and morals that believes this is just?

    Becoming a citizen is a process, and perhaps there could be ways to expedite the system. That might deserve to be a subject to address in immigration reform. But the utter disrespect of the law of the land, with the expectation that all entitlements will be extended is simply unacceptable to the rational mind.

    Anyone with good reason to fear deportation should have that fear. I will not support anything at all that would reduce that fear.

  2. Well little you do know. Several things missing but first i’m far from being a liberal. I do dislike them. On the other hand:
    – illegal immigration started in 1492 in the Americas.
    – a guide to apply for citizenship will not fit in a pocket size card
    – I am a legal immigrant and while I was under visa status but not a resident yet i was terrified of being deported. (Had pass several critical background checks before and after the green card for jobs and for immigration purposes as well as gun audition) yes there was no rational basis for my dear other than how unreasonable immigration or HLS is. I had a friend that came legally and obtained a legal visa by a legit business and she sad all Kosher. After went back in vacation to her country to see dying friend got send back from airport. Lost get job because couldn’t come back. Car got repo and home forclosed. This happened during Obama. Eventually they let her in again after she found new sponsor as old sponsor didn’t want hassle of dealing with is papers and the detention fiasco again.
    – myself got told by my boss that if they knew how much of a hassle in was they would have not hired me.
    – illegal immigrants do contribute and pay taxes. All off them that work with fake papers get taxes taken out and do not benefit from the contributions they make to whatever ssn account they are using as they know better not to file taxes. While all poor families get money back they don’t get squat.

  3. To aAdar29 sorry about you story but let explain the difference between you an the Mexican
    The husband & wife work here all in cash they dont pay any taxes but they go to the emergency room for free !!
    Who pays for it?
    Then they have kids again for FREE now they are American kids
    They get walfare medicaid wic foodstamp etc.
    Who pays for it ?
    Then they go to public schools they get all the programs for FREE
    who pays for it
    In Rockland county jewish people pay an average! $10,000
    Per year in school taxes now most of this kids parents are not legal here
    This is just a start

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