USA TODAY International Edition
Where is ICE? Waiting is agony
Uncertainty over raids weighs on immigrants
DENVER – Anxious immigrants waited in fear Sunday as federal raids promised by President Donald Trump failed to materialize, while advocates staffed hotlines and visited churches to reassure worried families.
Trump said the raids would start Sunday, leading many to worry that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would follow their usual procedure of conducting predawn raids to round up immigrants.
As the hours passed, immigration attorneys and advocates around the country said they had not heard any reports of unusual ICE activity. The president said the raids will primarily target immigrants with criminal convictions or those ordered deported.
Camila Alvarez, a managing attorney for the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles, said the day proved “anxiety-inducing” for the community.
“It’s so clear that this is a political tool for the current administration,” Alvarez said. “These raid announcements have been designed to instill fear in the immigrant community.”
At St. Lucy’s Church in Newark, New Jersey, more than 50 people gathered to hear what they should do if ICE agents came knocking. Newark resident Carlos Garay, who has two U.S.born children, said he thinks twice before leaving his house every morning for work. He said he’s spoken to his sister-in-law, a U.S. citizen, about tak
ing care of his children if he is detained for lacking immigration permission.
“For years, I was here alone, and when a man is here alone, a man can fight alone, but when time passes and you have a family, then fear sets in,” Garay said in Spanish, noting he does not have any deportation orders against him.
In Baltimore, the Rev. Bill Gohl Jr., the Lutheran bishop of DelawareMaryland Synod, kept watch outside Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Highlandtown neighborhood, an area he said is heavily populated with Latino immigrants. It was the third church he visited Sunday as part of his work with a network of interfaith leaders who monitor ICE activity.
In Texas, activists visited a north Houston flea market popular with immigrants to hand out pamphlets and gauge emotion in the community. ICE is probably waiting until national attention on the supposed raids subsides before launching operations, said Cesar Espinosa, executive director of the migrant advocacy group FIEL Houston.
“We’re keeping our eyes and ears open for the next couple of days,” Espinosa said.
Across the nation, hotlines got calls from people who were afraid and asking questions. “And a lot of hate calls,” mostly from people spouting anti-immigrant rhetoric, said Hamid Yazdan Panah, regional director for the Northern California Rapid Response & Immigrant Defense Network.
In Chicago, parishioners at St. Agnes of Bohemia, a Catholic church on the city’s southwest side, shared the pews with some high-profile visitors at 10:30 a.m. Mass Sunday. Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Sen. Dick Durbin, Rep. Jesus “Chuy’’ Garcia and other Illinois politicians attended the Mass to show support for the community.
After Mass, they walked half a mile down 26th Street, a shopping street dubbed Chicago’s Mexican Magnificent Mile, talking with shop owners and handing out cards that listed people’s rights during an ICE raid and a number for a family support line.
Trump’s supporters agree with his decision to target immigrants who have entered or remained in the USA illegally, arguing that millions have become citizens by following the law instead of sneaking across the border. Immigration advocates say the system is hopelessly broken and fails to adequately protect migrants fleeing widespread violence in their home countries.
ICE officials remained quiet about their plans Sunday. Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, refused to say whether the raids had even started. “I can’t speak to operational specifics and won’t,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Immigration advocates expected that communities around Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco would be targeted in the raids through at least Thursday.
“These raid announcements have been designed to instill fear in the immigrant community.”
Camila Alvarez Central American Resource Center