Amid Trump deportation threats, communities prepare

Carey L Biron, Reuters

Nearly 100 people from across the United States joined an online meeting one recent Saturday, all wanting to know how they could help their immigrant neighbors amid President Donald Trump’s threats of mass deportations. Campaigner Yaritza Mendez offered answers, outlining plans for a nationwide network of volunteer positions and training sessions, part of a community-based effort gaining momentum since Trump pledged an “unprecedented” crackdown on the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.

“This is the third call we’ve had this week, and we’ve already trained hundreds from across the country to ... figure out how to contribute to the movement,” Mendez, with the New York-based Action Lab, a group that organizes activists, told participants.

The group is sponsoring a Solidarity Pledge, which commits people to put their “body on the line in strategic actions as soon as Trump begins mass deportations of children, immigrant youth, and workers.” The pledge has garnered nearly 6,000 sign-ups since its Jan. 17 launch, just before Trump’s inauguration, with training on topics like legal rights and conflict de-escalation techniques, Mendez told Context/the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The nationwide community effort has been bolstered in part by outrage over the Trump administration’s rescinding of longstanding policy that barred immigration enforcement in “sensitive” locations like schools and churches. That has prompted lawsuits from the Denver school system, several churches and others. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to email requests for comment on the policy change or its outcomes.

“This notion of ‘sensitive locations’ is out the window. Everything is up for grabs,” Mendez said.

The Trump administration has been detaining several hundred people a day in its immigration crackdown, announcing it had arrested more than 20,000 people in its first month of stepped-up enforcement.

The harsh rhetoric and detentions are intensifying into a pounding drum beat that is raising fear among many vulnerable residents and prompting new action from civic groups. In Washington, Claudia Tristan with Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid works shifts on a hotline set up in January for callers to report possible sightings of federal immigration officials, information that is then relayed on social media. The hotline also fields questions from increasingly worried callers, asking about their rights or what to do if they have to interact with immigration officials.

The hotline has gotten hundreds of calls, and related efforts are seeing huge volunteer sign-ups, Tristan said.

“A lot of people want to do more hands-on work,” she said.

“They want to take some sort of physical action, and mutual aid really offers that avenue for people.” Since the November presidential election, the group has been holding in-person “know your rights” training, she said. “A big reminder I tell people is just don’t answer the door, and teach your kids not to answer and open the door.”

Schools are likewise putting new policies in place.

“I have 400 families I’m trying to protect,” said the principal of a Washington-area public school that is about 40% Latino. “We all wonder if we might be ordered to turn over a second-grade Latino boy to agents without contacting the parents. Yes, you might,” said the principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution.

The school has held meetings to hear concerns from parents, purchased hundreds of small reference “red cards” outlining legal rights and is planning “bystander training” on intervention techniques.

It also is boosting mental health services, urging families to create emergency checklists and go-bags in case of a parent’s arrest and having a Latin American embassy representative come to help with immigration documentation. The school has compiled a list of dozens of staff members who could take in and care for students in case of emergency.

“We had an emergency meeting of staff and educated everybody on the protocol for if something were to happen. We’re trying to keep teachers calm and focused on what we do best,” the principal said.

Lawmakers are proposing laws prohibiting immigration enforcement at or near various locations such as schools, playgrounds, places of worship, health-care facilities and homeless shelters. Churches and public libraries are also taking measures.

“Our congregations have made it clear that they are committed to protecting their members, neighbors and loved ones who have been made vulnerable, and will defend our right to live out our religious values in the world,” said Carey McDonald, executive vice president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, which has more than 1,000 congregations and 130,000 members across the country.

The denomination, which is part of a lawsuit by faith groups against the Trump administration’s ending the ban on immigration raids in places of worship, has encouraged congregations to learn how to respond to immigration agents and to delineate private areas within churches where immigration officials cannot go without a warrant.

In Arlington, Virginia, the public library system has become a resource hub for those worried about immigration enforcement. The staff has collected information on legal rights and citizenship, links to immigration groups and details on legal and social services, said Diane Kresh, director of the county’s Department of Libraries. “We’re not going to judge, evaluate, ask you for identification or your purpose .... We’re here to give you resources that can help you,” she said.