'Bad place, bad timing': Undocumented immigrants living in fear of deportation

Crossing a busy street lined by vendors with heavy accents selling lotions, fruits and other goods, there's an old building around the corner of 180 Street and Juan Pablo Duarte Boulevard in Washington Heights, Manhattan.

Tucked away with no obvious signage, a small immigrant rights nonprofit operates inside. To enter, you get buzzed in and take an antique elevator with a manually opening door. On the third floor, in a small office, the room is filled with Hispanic families, many with young children, waiting patiently so they could speak about their immigration cases with Elvira Vargas, a lawyer and president of Coalition Pro Immigrants.

A television plays the news in Spanish, filling the space with familiar sounds. On the wall hangs a sign featuring the Statue of Liberty and the US national flag, boldly printed with the word "Freedom".

After opening the glass door, you are greeted by Elvis M. Jaquez, who will learn more about your case. Most of the people who come are undocumented. Jaquez said people are scared and right now is a case of "bad place, bad timing" as President Donald Trump's administration is enforcing immigration laws "more than they should".

"People are scared to walk outside just because they don't know if (their) stepping outside will be the last time they'll be in the US. …Other people have told me that they don't even want to take their kids to school sometimes because of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). They're going to get taken on the way to school because they (ICE) are posted up in front of school sometimes," said Jaquez.

An undocumented immigrant who came to the US 26 years ago and goes by the first name of Mariam told The New York Times that she was fired recently from her job in a laundromat because of all the ICE raids across the country.

"Many people have lost their jobs overnight," said the mother of five. "We're all afraid."

According to the Migration Policy Institute, there are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US, with 835,000 in New York and 951,000 in Los Angeles. At the end of April, the administration claimed it had deported more than 139,000 people and it's only getting more aggressive. Just recently, the Trump administration directed ICE to increase its arrest quota to 3,000 people per day from 1,000, meaning over a million people will be deported in a year if the quota is fulfilled.

In early June, after a few immigration raids, a demonstration outside of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and US Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles quickly turned into violent, citywide large-scale protests with the Trump administration dispatching the National Guard and Marines without consulting California Governor Gavin Newsom.

The "No Kings" protest occurred on Trump's 79th birthday, also a day that happened to be the US Army's 250th anniversary. Most of the city maintained a peaceful protest.

Just a day after the "No Kings" protest, Trump posted on Truth Social that a plan to carry out "the largest mass deportation operation of illegal aliens in history" targeting Democrat-run cities is underway.

A research by the American Immigration Council, which analyzed crime data from 1980 to 2022, found that as the immigrant population grew, both violent crime and property crime rates declined. The research concludes "a robust body of research shows that welcoming immigrants into American communities not only does not increase crime, but can actually strengthen public safety. … This is true at the national, state, county and neighborhood levels, and for both violent and non-violent crime."

Elvira Vargas of Coalition Pro Immigrants strongly opposes mass deportations. She said: "Not all the people that are here are criminals, but most of the people are working people who have family, who came here to get a better life. … For one reason or another, they couldn't legalize. But they've been here all their life. Many of those people even have homes, businesses established here."

Both Vargas and Jaquez believe mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would lead to inflation.

"Americans are not going to do immigrant jobs. … It's really going to affect a lot because when you don't have that person that used to cost, let's say for example $10 to do a job, and now you have to get somebody to do it for $20. Everything is going to go up," said Jaquez.

bilinlin@chinadailyusa.com