Fear.
It’s the kind of fear that bolsters one’s faith. In the absence of any certainty and the presence of pervasive terror, undocumented residents in Durango said they were turning to God on Monday, the day President Donald Trump took the oath of office for a second time and signed an executive order directing federal authorities with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pursue more deportations.
But even practicing religion is shrouded in fear.
“I am afraid that if I leave my house, ICE would be waiting for me, or when I go pick up my kids or go to the store or when I go to church, I feel fear,” said one woman living in the community without permanent legal status.
She spoke to The Durango Herald through a translator on the condition of anonymity.
The woman crossed the border from Mexico illegally almost 20 years ago and now lives in Durango with her family. She and her husband both work service jobs.
“What we make, we invest it in the local community,” the woman said. “We pay rent, we pay our bills, we buy food, so we are feeding the economy as well. We file and we pay our taxes.”
With an abundance of uncertainty, distrust and misinformation at hand as Trump takes office once again, immigrants without documents and the community members who advocate on their behalf say they are busy preparing and praying.
Throughout the course of presidential campaign, Trump made immigration – and a promise to crack down on illegal immigration – a marquee part of his platform.
“We have to clean out our country,” Trump said at a rally in Aurora in October.
Although his claims were often grossly hyperbolic (Trump repeatedly said 21 million migrants illegally crossed into the United States over the last three years, when in reality U.S. Customs and Border Protections recorded 8.9 million encounters, including the millions of people who were rapidly expelled), they resonated with conservative voters in Southwest Colorado.
“I welcome people coming here, but come to the front door, knock on the door, put in the work,” said Lisa Zimmerman, a former leader of the La Plata County Republican Central Committee who previously said curbing illegal immigration was a key issue for her. “If you don’t put in the work, you’re not going to respect it the same as those who are actually from here and those who earned it.”
On his first day in office, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders, a number of which addressed immigration.
He expanded the expedited removal program, clamped down on work permits for those with pending immigration cases and took steps to ensure that undocumented immigrants do not receive public benefits, among other actions.
Trump has said his administration will target undocumented immigrants with criminal convictions.
“I don’t know how true this is,” said a second woman, also a Durango resident originally from Mexico who has been living in the U.S. without proper documentation for nearly two decades.
She fears that even though she herself has no criminal record, being in the wrong place at the wrong time when authorities descend could have serious consequences.
“If we are not people who are looking for trouble, if we are not hurting anyone, why would they want to hurt those families that are stable, that are not getting in trouble?” asked the first woman, at times through tears, stressing that she too, has no criminal record and does not drink or use drugs. “The only things that we do is live our normal life – work (and) take our kids to school without getting in trouble.”
The result of this fear has an immediate impact on the community, says Enrique Orozco, co-executive director of Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center.
Already, he says the advocacy organization has received reports of students missing school, noticed a decline in youth mental health and heard unsubstantiated rumors of federal authorities in town.
In hushed tones when the children are asleep, the first woman who spoke with the Herald said, she and her husband discuss what would happen if one or both of them were deported.
“We talk as softly as we can because we don’t want them to be traumatized or to be living in fear,” she said. “They don’t understand that part of how one person cannot belong to the U.S. just because they don’t have the documents.”
They are making sure their children, both American-born citizens, have valid passports to travel; they are also arranging the proper documentation so that their assets can be handled from afar, if necessary.
The second woman said she and her husband had signed over power of attorney over their children to a third party.
“We’re talking about changing our whole lives,” she said.
Orozco said Compañeros has ramped up its work since the election. He has met with school district officials to ensure they know what they can and cannot do when federal authorities show up; the organization is launching trainings as a part of the Southwest Rapid Response Network, a resource that verifies and observes ICE activity in the region; and the organization is holding “Know Your Rights” and family preparedness workshops.
“Things are happening really quickly – changing constantly – so we’re trying to really get that information into wording that our community members understand, and sharing that information,” he said.
A spokesman for ICE’s Denver office said Thursday he would respond to questions about the agency’s activity in the area “when I’m able,” but did not respond to questions by deadline Friday.
Both women said they fear there will be negative economic ramifications in the community as a result of deportations or people failing to show up to work out of fear.
“I think that the entire country will come down,” the second woman said. “I believe that we do contribute a lot to the economy because we work hard, and this country has lifted, in a lot of ways, thanks to us.”
rschafir@durangoherald.com
