Fear spreads for immigrants
Those living in South Florida react to crackdown: ‘They feel like this is not their country anymore’
On a rainy Thursday afternoon, an elfin 16-year-old Guatemalan girl walked into the office of a church-run legal aid agency in Miramar to keep an appointment about her future.
She carried in her arms her 7-month old son, swaddled in a colorful furry blanket, and in her heart a sliver of hope. Four months ago she walked across the Mexican border into Texas. She said she was held in detention for 12 weeks before getting assigned a date for an immigration hearing in Texas and being released. Instead of waiting for the hearing, she traveled to Florida to join a cousin in Hollywood. Nowher dream is to stay in the U.S. “I left because of the poverty,” said the young mother, who asked not to be identified by name because she is fearful of being deported. “I can’t go back to Guatemala. But I see what is going on on the news. I am scared.”
Throughout South Florida’s immigrant communities, “there is great fear and trepidation, 24-7,” said veteran Fort Lauderdale immigration
lawyer Michael Shane. “People are extremely worried, including naturalized citizens who have no reason to worry. They feel like this is not their country anymore.”
Behind the rising fears is the Trump administration s’ s announced crackdown on undocumented immigrants that puts some 11 million people in the U.S. at risk for deportation. Among them are 450,000 residents of Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, the fifth highest concentration in the nation, according to the latest estimates from the Pew Research Center.
At a Washington business forum Thursday, President Donald Trump def ended his expanded deportation policy by claiming the administration was getting “bad dudes out of this country.”
In recent weeks, Shane said he has talked to many clients who cannot contain their emotions as they come to realize that their families could be torn apart by deportations.
“In my office we have gone through boxes of tissues,” said Shane, in practice since 1978. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Among those who would seem to have little reason to worry is Kelsey Burke, a 29-year-old personal injury attorney with a West Palm Beach firm.
But Burke is also a native of Honduras who was brought illegally into the U.S. at the age of 10 by her mother, wholed her and her siblings on a dangerous journey through Guatemala and Mexico in hopes of providing the family a better life. And even though Burke attended high school in Lake Worth, and holds degrees from college and law school, she is in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status and has no path to citizenship.
“The reality in the back of my mind is that I don’t have a green card, I amnot a citizen, and I am not safe either,” Burke said. “I am walking around aware that it could happen, but I can’t live my life every moment feeling that I’m next.”
“If I did,” said Burke, who volunteers at a Jupiter community center that serves immigrants, “how could I get up and help people?”
Under memos issued Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security, and signed by Secretary John Kelly, any immigrant living in the U.S. illegally who has been convicted, charged or even suspected of any crime — even a minor traffic offense — would be an enforcement priority and subject to quick removal.
That represents an expansion of the number of people targeted for deportation in comparison with the policy followed by the Obama administration, which focused on only those convicted of serious crimes.
Trump’s policy drew cheers from Sid Dinerstein, former Palm Beach County Republican Chairman.
“He’s going after felons; who could be against that?” he said. “[Undocumented immigrants] are fearful and worried because we have a president who might for once enforce the laws that people over years have voted for.”
South Florida immigrant advocates say many people are resigned to being deported under the new policies.
“People are coming in and asking not for immigration help, but to make arrangements for their children when they get deported,” said Randy McGrorty, executive director of Catholic Charities Legal Services, an arm of the Archdiocese of Miami that runs the Miramar law clinic. “It’s a general climate where people think the country has changed into one that’s not welcoming anymore. That’s disheartening.”
Many legal experts and immigrant advocates contend that the logistics of mass deportations in the near future make the threat impossible to carry out.
“It will take five to 10 years for the enforcement agencies and the courts to do what Trump is talking about,” South Florida immigrant rights attorney Ira Kurzban said.
But that does not mean that immigrants, including some who have legal residency — green cards — or citizenship, are immune from anxiety about the future.
Maria Madrinan, a 28-year-old student at Broward College, is a socalled Dreamer, temporarily protected from deportation by the the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. Trump administration officials have said that the DACA program will remain untouched.
Still, Madrinan, who was 8 or 9 when her parents brought her to the U.S. from Colombiaon a tourist visa, is aware of what she called “the political climate of unrest, insecurity and fear” among many of her friends and classmates.
“Though we are not targeted right now, this administration has not been consistent,” she said. “So we need to do our best to finish school and prove we are an asset to the country by not doing anything wrong.
“For the time being, we are taking it one day at a time.”
Isabel Vinent of the Florida Immigrant Coalition of Palm Beachsaid she sees the administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants as a drastic turn in a decades-long “war, criminalizing our communities.”
Vinent said the question she hears most often from clients is, “How can I protect myself and my kids. What can I say when they knock on the door?”
Vinent’s answer: “Do not open the door unless they have a judicial arrest warrant. Tell little kids not to open the door. Do not sign anything. And memorize the phone number of an attorney.”
At Broward-based His panic Unity of Florida, president Josie Bacallao said worried clients are also seeking information in case parents without legal status are deported and leave behind minor children who may be U.S. -born citizens.
“One thing families are doing,” said Bacallao, “is preparing by seeking powers of attorney so that, if they are deported, they can leave whatever they have to those family members who are documented.”
Shane agrees with Kurzban that strict enforcement of immigration laws as proposed by the administration is logistically impossible.
But that analysis lends little comfort to those who feel threatened.
A 53-year-old man from Trinidad, who asked to be identified only as Jim, walked into Shane’s office Friday to ask what could be done to deal with his predicament. He and his wife entered the U.S. 27 years ago on visitors’ visas and never went home.
They worked hard, paid taxes, never got into any trouble, and never worried, Jim said.
“From what I’m hearing, I feel like this is end of the road for me,” Jim said in a phone call from Shane’s office. “It’s very scary.”
Alas, Shane told Jim therewas little that could be done immediately to quell his anxiety. “He’s definitely not on the priority list for deportation, and nothing he’s done would cause ICE to find or detain him,” Shane said. He is not a threat, just undocumented.
“Let’s face it, immigration is broken, and it has been for 25 to 30 years,” Shane said. “But in this administration anti-immigrant hysteria is fed every day.
“The people making these decisions need to do some soul searching and find a more humane way to deal with this issue.”
“It will take five to 10 years for the enforcement agencies and the courts to do what Trump is talking about.” Ira Kurzban, attorney