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    Tuesday, May 07, 2024

    Worried migrants, supporters waiting for ICE raids

    People hold signs calling for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a rally before the start of a march in opposition to the Trump administration's plans to continue with raids to catch immigrants in the country illegally, Sunday, July 14, 2019, in the Queens borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julius Constantine Motal)

    LOS ANGELES — The raids — hyped for weeks by President Donald Trump — were to take place in major U.S. cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Miami, Denver, Atlanta, Baltimore and Houston.

    As of Sunday evening, there were no reports of arrests in the Los Angeles area. And the widespread raids that some feared failed to materialize.

    In Florida, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were seen knocking on doors near Miami International Airport on Sunday and in the migrant farming community of Immokalee on Friday, but there had been no reports of arrests, said Melissa Taveras of the Miami-based Florida Immigrant Coalition.

    “We don’t know if they’re doing it on purpose — saying these cities are the targets so then smaller places are targeted,” Taveras said.

    Taveras said migrant advocates were advising families to memorize the phone number of a relative or an attorney they could call if they were detained by ICE, and to ensure a relative knew their full name, date of birth and what location they’re being taken to so that they could try to get released.

    She said she has been in contact with migrant families hiding in their homes. She said it felt as though they were preparing for a storm.

    “The overall environment is very much like a hurricane: When is it going to come, is it going to hit us, is it going to move north?” she said.

    In Houston, there was no sign of ICE raids early Sunday.

    “It’s actually really quiet. We’re driving around and it’s really empty,” said Cesar Espinosa, executive director of immigrant advocacy group Fiel Houston.

    Espinosa was driving to check out a report that two migrants had been picked up by ICE at an apartment complex late Saturday. Nearly a dozen churches have volunteered to house migrants during the raids, providing food and other supplies. But many were sheltering in place.

    “We’re advising people to just continue with their lives,” Espinosa said, “and know their rights so they know what to do.”

    By late Sunday afternoon, Venus Rodriguez was reaching out to migrant families hiding at home and preparing to emerge Monday.

    “They’re going to attempt to go to work, because they need the money,” said Rodriguez, 43, a U.S. citizen and a community organizer on Houston’s north side. “It’s a scary situation for a lot of them.”

    While some officials have said that only recent migrants with deportation orders will be targeted in the ICE raids, she said, “a lot of them are not trusting that. They think they might just start picking people up.”

    Rodriguez attended Mass at a local Catholic church Sunday where the pews were emptier than usual.

    “That’s one place you should feel safe,” she said. “This is horrible.”

    On Saturday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said his office was “receiving reports of attempted but reportedly unsuccessful ICE enforcement actions in Sunset Park and Harlem.”

    Three attempted ICE raids were reported later — two in the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn and one in Harlem — according to the New York Mayor’s Office of Immigration Affairs.

    “No arrests were made to our knowledge,” the office said in a statement.

    Jojo Annobil, executive director of New York-based Immigrant Justice Corps, said that even though no arrests had been made in the raids, “people are still scared.”

    “It’s going to carry over into the week, with children scared their parents won’t come home” from work, he said of the ICE raids. “It scares neighborhoods. People are on edge, because nobody knows who they are targeting.”

    Annobil said his group, which includes 54 lawyers in New York, New Jersey and Southern states, was prepared to respond by representing migrants with deportation orders and filing motions to reopen their cases.

    Sunday’s ICE operation was targeted at a couple of thousand people with court removal orders, but it also was to include “collateral” deportations in which agents detain immigrants in the country illegally who are not intended targets but happen to be in the area.

    A main focus of the raids is families, many of whom failed to show up for a court hearing on their case. Also targeted are children who arrived at the border without an adult and were released to a parent or other sponsor but ordered deported, said Greg Chen, director of government relations at the Washington-based American Immigration Lawyers Association.

    An ICE spokesman wouldn’t give many details, and it remains unclear how many people will be swept up. President Donald Trump has tweeted about the raid for nearly a month, and that has immigrants here illegally on edge.

    On most Sundays, Los Angeles resident Elias, who didn’t want his last name used out of fear, said he would take his girlfriend and toddler to the beach or the park.

    Instead, the three hunkered down in his MacArthur Park apartment. His brother — who doesn’t have legal status and lives with them for the moment — called in sick to work.

    Elias planned to order meals online for delivery. He was careful to answer the door only to people he knew.

    Elias doesn’t have a removal order. The Guatemalan immigrant, who arrived in the U.S. when he was 15, said he had a special visa allowing him to temporarily live and work in the country legally.

    Still, he said he was petrified of setting foot outside his home. He’s not alone. He said many of his friends had bought a week’s worth of groceries on Saturday in preparation for the anticipated raids.

    Elias used vacation days to take an entire week off from his work at a cafe.

    “I feel like there is no way to hide,” he said, “but just pray to my God to protect me.”

    The MacArthur Park area, which for decades has served as a port of entry for new arrivals from Mexico and Central America, is among the most crowded and densely developed sections of Los Angeles. It is a place where immigrant families gather to socialize and browse myriad shops and street vendors offer items and services as varied as fresh mangoes and cheap furniture, used clothes and check-cashing services.

    The prevailing mood among owners of businesses along the usually bustling streets surrounding the park was one of unease and anger on Sunday as the threats of raids kept away more than two-thirds of their patrons.

    Many loyal customers were afraid even to show their faces for fear of being questioned or detained, and the nearly empty 30-acre park — usually a magnet for throngs of people on a summer weekend under azure skies — worsened the economic impact for a community that was already feeling on edge.

    Leaning against the counter of a Total Wireless store, salesman Biviano Oxlaj, who earns commissions on sales, shook his head in dismay and said, “I’ve been staring at the front door all day, just hoping a customer shows up.

    “Business is down by 75 percent, and it’s been that way since Saturday,” he said. “But since this is all because of an order from the White House, there’s not much anyone can do but wait for it to pass like a storm cloud.”

    A block away, Juan Castenada, a clerk at Bargain Dica, where many items cost a dollar, looked out on empty aisles. “People are afraid to come outside,” he said. “So, it’s going to be a long, slow day.”

    A few doors down at Shalom Furniture, salesman Herman Ventura would not argue with any of that: “The few people out on the street today are nervous and looking over their shoulder. The rest just stayed home.”

    Edgar Barrera noticed that his Koreatown neighborhood was quieter than usual Sunday. He didn’t see many families walking the streets, there were fewer people attending morning church service, and the nearby Guatemalan and Salvadoran bakeries were practically empty.

    “It has been totally silent around here since yesterday,” Barrera, 59, an immigrant here illegally from Guatemala. “People are terrified to go out on the streets.”

    Barrera manages a store that helps clients send packages to Guatemala at a cheap price. He said he works seven days a week and plans to continue doing so.

    “I can’t give myself the luxury of not going to work,” he said. “I have to pay rent, I have to pay for food. … My mother is sick and needs medicine, and I’m the only person who can pay her medical bills.”

    He says that word of the ICE raids spread quickly through the Guatemalan community, primarily through Facebook. Many people stayed home Sunday or found different ways to stay out of sight, he said.

    Barrera was avoiding driving on main avenues Sunday, and took the side roads to get to work. But he’s not changing his routine too much.

    “I’m tired of running away all the time,” he said. “I’m hoping that if I stay calm, nothing will happen.”

    Barrera said he can’t afford a lawyer to help him gain legal status — so if he is apprehended, he’s going to have to accept going back to Guatemala after a life built up for more than 20 years in the United States. It’s clear that his community is scared of ICE raids, or “la migra,” as he calls immigration officers, but there’s not much he thinks he can do about it.

    “The fear is already instilled in all of us,” he said. “But I’m going to keep working the same as usual.”

    Though Sunday’s raids were expected to specifically target families who had been ordered deported, ICE continues to conduct routine targeted enforcement operations throughout the country. In Los Angeles last week, dozens of migrants with criminal convictions were arrested by immigration authorities, and over the last few months roughly 900 such arrests have taken place nationwide, officials said.

    These operations specifically target people who are a threat to public safety, such as convicted criminals and individuals who have violated immigration laws. By contrast, many of the families targeted under Trump’s enforcement initiative are people who have been issued final removal orders because they failed to show up for a court hearing on their case.

    “For us it’s like, the government went through all this trouble to give you an opportunity … and then you didn’t even show up for court,” said an immigration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There’s a consequence — you violated the law and you didn’t go to court. That’s our job. That’s why it’s called law enforcement.”

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