EXECUTIVE ORDERS PROJECT - IMMIGRATION: Local Latino Community Fearful Following Recent Executive Orders
For many, the place they've come to call home is no longer safe or hospitable. And parents kiss their children as they leave for school, not knowing if they'll be there for them when they return.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Recently, whenever Valeria’s teenaged daughters leave the house—even if just to go to the store on an errand for her—they’ve been hugging her and telling her, “I love you.”
“Every time they leave, they are saying ‘goodbye’ like they are looking for closure,” said Valeria, her eyes filling with tears.
Valeria’s daughters are afraid that when they return home, their mother might be gone, taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Advance spoke to Valeria—not her real name—at a local Latino Multiservices office this week. She came to the United States from Honduras in 2002 as an 18-year-old to join her siblings and seek better economic opportunities, she said.
Valeria and her husband moved to the Fredericksburg area eight years ago. They have four daughters who were born in the U.S.—three of whom attend a local public school.
Up until January of this year, Valeria said, she and her family mostly felt safe and welcomed in the U.S. She and her husband both worked—he’s a self-employed landscaper and she operated a food truck dishing out Mexican cuisine. Their daughters participated in after school activities like gymnastics and cheerleading.
“Now, it feels like all eyes are on us,” Valeria said. “People are assuming things about us.”
Valeria stopped working when she was pregnant with her youngest daughter and has never gone back. She said she misses working, but she is “hesitant to be in public.”
“I do not want to be seen,” she said. “Right now, I don’t even leave the house because I am afraid people might say something.”
Asked to list the places where she feels safe, Valeria said only her house, her siblings’ houses, and her church.
“Other than that, nowhere,” she said.
Federal and State Executive Orders
Since taking office on January 20, President Donald Trump has issued a flurry of executive orders aimed at reducing the flow of immigrants to the U.S. One order suspends the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, and another authorizes increased vetting and screening of those seeking admission to the country, and those already in the country.
An order titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” directs executive departments and agencies to enforce final deportation orders and states that “all available resources be allocated to create facilities to detain those to be removed.”
Another order rescinds multiple executive orders issued by the Biden Administration, including one that established a task force on the reunification of families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border and one that worked to strengthen “integration and inclusion efforts for New Americans.”
Further Trump executive orders have assigned to the U.S. Armed Forces the mission of “[sealing] the borders and maintain[ing] the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion” and revoked birthright citizenship for “persons when their mother was unlawfully present in the U.S. and their father was not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident at the time of their birth; or when their mother’s presence in the U.S. was temporary … and their father was not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.”
The Department of Homeland Security announced on January 22 that immigration enforcement officials will now be able to make arrests in schools, churches, and hospitals, reversing guidance that had been in place since 2011.
On February 27, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin issued his own executive order directing state law enforcement and corrections officers to assist with federal immigration enforcement and to sign agreements with ICE that deputize state and local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law.
These actions have caused unrest and fear among the local Latino population. Local school divisions have reported that attendance numbers among certain student groups are lower than they were this time last year.
At a meeting held last month by Virginia Organizing to come up with a safety plan for the area’s undocumented immigrants, one woman said, “I fear that my husband will go to work and not come home.”
Another said she only leaves her house to go to her job and that when she comes home, she locks her doors.
“It’s scary to go out,” the woman said.
“There is the feeling that no one is safe”
Valeria said her husband travels to surrounding counties for work and drives a pickup truck with a trailer. Since Youngkin’s executive order authorizing state police to enforce immigration law, they’re afraid he “could get pulled over for something and it would lead to something else,” she said.
However, he’s their only source of income, so “he has to push through” those fears, she said.
The family lives in a neighborhood that is predominantly Latino, and Valeria said there used to be people out often walking their dogs or gathering at the bus stop to meet their children coming home from school.
“Now, the streets are deserted,” she said.
Her mother-in-law recently cancelled a family wedding celebration because she didn’t want extended family to risk driving in from other states. Her teenaged daughters have told her they’ve started feeling uncomfortable in school, as well.
“Because they are Latino, [other kids] assume that they are undocumented,” Valeria said. “This situation is hard because what has been happening is bringing out the worst in people.”
At home during the day, Valeria said, she spends her time taking care of her youngest daughter, studying the Bible, and “getting deeper into her faith.” But she’s also trying to make plans.
“[If I were deported] how would that work for me?” she wonders. “Who could I leave my older daughters with? Would my younger daughters’ future here be affected if they had to come with me?”
Valeria said the fear in her community is pervasive whether people have legal permission to be in the country or not.
“There is the feeling that no one is safe,” she said.
“We are here to work”
Community members who attended recent Virginia Organizing meetings are working on putting together a list of resources for the area immigrant population, including legal resources, and plan to meet with local law enforcement, elected officials, and state and federal legislators to ask them to put policies in place that protect the community.
“People can reach out to their Congress members, and the Governor, and try to get something in front of them that helps us get back in safe space, or opens a pathway to get a work visa,” Valeria said.
She said the Latino community is supportive of immigration enforcement that focuses on those who have committed felonies. She said she knows members of the community who supported Donald Trump or who voted for him for economic and religious reasons.
“Now that they see what is happening [with immigration enforcement] they regret it,” she said.
“I would love people to know that we come to this country with a similar vision as those who are already here,” Valeria continued. “We’re not criminals. We are hard working. We contribute to society. We are not harming anybody in any way by being here. We are here to work, and we just want to be left alone.”
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