For many community groups that support immigrants, anti-immigrant rhetoric is nothing new.
But as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House on Monday, churches, schools and shelters on the Eastside are bracing themselves for more aggressive anti-immigrant policies that could impact the people they serve.
While on the campaign trail, Trump promised mass deportations unseen in American history and intentions to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. Sanctuary cities that commit to protecting immigrants may also lose federal funding, his platform states.
The timing and nature of Trump’s actions remain uncertain. However, in Los Angeles County—home to about 800,000 undocumented immigrants, with an additional million living in mixed-status households, according to a report by USC’s Equity Research Institute—the stakes are high. In Latino-immigrant communities like Boyle Heights, those stakes are even higher.
From Boyle Heights to East L.A., here are some ways community groups are preparing for the next four years.
A shelter in Boyle Heights offers sanctuary for immigrants
Raquel Roman says shelters operated by Proyecto Pastoral, the community-building organization where she’s a director, have served immigrants from Latin America and other parts of the world since they opened in 1986.
“Since the beginning, it was families from Central America, families that were escaping the Civil War. And then over the years, it’s been immigrants from Mexico,” Roman said. “Depending on what’s happening around the world, we’ve had folks from the Ukraine, we’ve had folks from Cuba, we’ve had folks from Venezuela, Honduras. Anyone escaping the harsh conditions of their home country, we’ve most likely served at the shelter.”
Now, more than ever, she says, it’s been critical to reactivate immigrant support programs and political education workshops held during the prior Trump administration.
“People are worried,” one educator said about her mostly Latino school with several students living in mixed-status families.
Roman said her organization recently reactivated the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network, a program that will provide rapid response in immigration raid verification and host workshops to connect undocumented people to resources and case managers.
“Our work has always been centered around community, whatever their needs are, we’re going to be there to support,” Roman said. Still, it wasn’t difficult for Roman to see the parallels between Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and the racist immigration sentiments and policies of the past, she said.
When asked if the shelter has a set plan of action in place in the event federal immigration enforcement agents show up at the nearly 40-year-old Boyle Heights shelter, Roman had a simple response: “We’ve always had plans.”
Details of the plans are private, to protect those that consider Proyecto Pastoral a place of refuge, but Roman assured, “We’re prepared.”
A haven at an East L.A. church
In East Los Angeles, Carlos Rincon has conducted service at Centro de Vida Victoriosa Church for nearly four decades. Over the years, Rincon has recognized a change in the makeup of his congregation and has seen more immigrant families rely on the community the church provides.
When Texas Gov. Greg Abbot began to send buses full of migrants to cities like Los Angeles, Rincon worked fast to accommodate those with no home, documented or not. The pastor worked with other church leaders to form a ministry called Bernabé, or Barnabas in English, a saint in the New Testament known for his generosity to the poor and helping those in need.
“My role with my community, my church is to be the spiritual leader. To offer support and pray, and be the guide in the moments of stress or any difficult situation. As a church, we’re preparing,” Rincon said, referring to the impending changes to immigration policies that Trump has long promised.
While housing several immigrant families in the church, many of them from Guatemala, Rincon noticed a shift when Trump won the election last November. When he asked some churchgoers why they weren’t coming to the usual Sunday service, many of them had a similar response.
“If there’s an opportunity to work on Sunday, they do it instead of coming to church. Why? Because they say, ‘We need to get as much money as we can before anything happens.’ ” Rincon said.
Rincon emphasized the need for continued community advocacy and legal resources to mitigate the potential negative effects of Trump’s proposed policies on immigration. He recently spearheaded a support group to offer resources to undocumented members of his church.
A group of about 20 people are members of the newly formed support group and many more are taking Rincon up on his offer to stay at the church after service for meals, words of support, or a place to stay if they need to.
“I ask them, why do you stay? And all of them say, ‘Because we’re afraid.. We are really afraid of what’s going to happen next year,’” Rincon said.
At this Boyle Heights school, an educator facilitates educational workshops
Oscar De La Hoya Ánimo Charter High School teacher Kim Kawaratani sees the value in reviving Trump-era workshops for students and their families to better understand their rights.
The history, American government and economics teacher has a background in immigration law and is leveraging the connections she made as an attorney to better inform and educate her student body and their families.
“We’ve done DACA workshops on our campus, because of contacts that I have. This felt like a really important time to be able to help my students and their families, and the community, feel a little bit better, hopefully,” Kawaratani said. “People are going to be feeling very edgy, and might be more concerned because of the threats of mass deportations but there is comfort in knowing you have a plan.”
Kawaratani has a “Know Your Rights” workshop scheduled for later this month and feels like the timing of her event is significant considering the energy at her school. Kawaratani said she’s had to console crying students, adding that “People are worried.”
The Los Angeles Unified School District, which has oversight of Kawaratani’s school, recently reaffirmed guidelines to protect school communities from immigration enforcement agents. In a reference guide published in December, LAUSD spelled out protocols for school staff and administration in the case ICE agents appear on district campuses.
Kawaratani said threats by the incoming president should not be taken lightly and pushed back against people who say warnings are stoking unnecessary fear.
“This time, he’s got a lot less tempering,” Kawaratani said, referring to Trump’s loyalist-branded cabinet picks. “I’m fearful that there’s going to be some targeting of sanctuary cities to instill fear. I do think something’s going to happen. I hope it doesn’t, but I do think there are going to be actions taken that will at least scare people, and I think it will be intentional.”
Editor’s note: This post has been edited to remove a mischaracterized number representing students in mixed-status families.
