President Donald Trump made addressing immigration — including the promise of large-scale deportations — a cornerstone of his election campaign. Now that his second term is underway, his aggressive immigration policies have generally been popular. However, that support decreases significantly when people are asked questions with details about how immigrants are being detained and processed and the types of people are being impacted. One notable exception is that support remains high for deporting immigrants convicted of a crime.
Local advocates are concerned about many of the Trump administration’s new policies — and hope that sharing how they impact people here in the Cape Fear region will help the public better understand the issue.
Vanessa Gonzalez, a local immigration attorney who has been practicing for 14 years, is one advocate in the community sharing those concerns. Others are Dr. Amanda Boomershine, a UNCW Spanish professor, and community advocate Brenda Brooks.
Boomershine also leads the university’s Latino Alliance, serves on New Hanover County’s Hispanic-Latino Commission, and volunteers as a Church World Service Wilmington translator. Brooks also translates for CWSW; her parents came to the U.S. to escape the violence of the El Salvadorian civil war and to pursue the “American Dream.” Brooks and her family moved to Carolina Beach in 1995, and she has lived in the region ever since.
Brooks said that some immigrant families like hers come to the U.S. because of the upheaval they’ve experienced in their native countries.
“Every immigrant I've met is ready to work and comes here despite their trauma. They get to those classes so that they can get that step up. They want to contribute; they don't want to harm anybody, and that rhetoric is tiring; now it's just exhausting,” she said.
While immigrants are not perfect, just like American-born citizens, data, as reported by NPR, has shown that they are not committing crimes at levels higher than native-born citizens.
Gonzalez also cautions the public to understand that to qualify for any of these legal immigration statuses; they typically cannot have committed a crime. For example, she said those with temporary protective status (TPS) lose it if they have two misdemeanors. Those with recent TPS are Venezuelans and Haitians.
Recent polling, including one from Reuters and Ipsos, shows more support for Trump’s immigration policies than opposition (48% support, 41% opposing), although a majority oppose the administration’s efforts to end birthright citizenship (89% of Democrats and 36% of Republicans, 59% overall).
However, Gonzalez, Boomershine, and Brooks are worried about the fallout of some of those policies and executive orders.
Gonzalez said the phones have been ringing off the hook since the first week of January, and she’s been asked to give speeches telling the community — both documented and undocumented — about their rights. She said while she continues her legal work on helping clients apply for green cards and U Visas or working with those on DACA or TPS, she has some “clients actively in deportation. I have deadlines to respond to [the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services], or they'll deny a petition.”
Green cards allow non-citizens to live and work in the United States permanently. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) allows children brought to the country illegally to work and avoid deportation on a temporary two-year basis, but it's not a path to citizenship.
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is, as the name suggests, a temporary immigration status allowing work and travel in the U.S. for people whose home countries are unsafe due to violence, natural disasters, or other humanitarian emergencies.
U visas are for victims of hate crimes, human trafficking, and various types of abuse who cooperate with law enforcement; they allow people to live and work in the country temporarily and can lead to a green card application.
Perception of immigrants
Brooks said many Americans are proud of their ancestors coming to the country to escape persecution, violence, famine, or to find a better way of life, but she feels that the same courtesy is not extended to hers.
“They quick to say, ‘Well, my ancestors did it the right way,’ without having any realistic historical knowledge about what way that was and why it was available specifically to your ancestors?”
Brooks added that most American parents would do what’s best for their children – the same goes for immigrant families. Boomershine said the reality of some immigrant communities escaping to the U.S. is dire.
“What I have seen from recent newcomers is their children hadn't eaten in days, or gangs or drug traffickers killed some of their family, or the country is in collapse, say, in Venezuela,” she said.
The Trump administration recently rescinded the temporary protective status of Venezuelans, which the Biden administration had legally granted. Boomershine said she fears what the community will face when they have to return home.
While Gonzalez, Boomershine, and Brooks support the humanitarian reasons people come to America, some maintain that if a person comes without documentation, there’s no excuse, and they should be sent back immediately. Boomershine notes that there are costs to that, including deportation centers, flying immigrants out of the country, court proceedings, and ICE resources. Under the Biden Administration, the cost of deporting one person was over $10,000; the cost of deporting all of the undocumented migrants in the country would be hundreds of billions of dollars.
Many align with the Trump administration's belief that immigrants tax the public system regarding resources. Over the years, polling from Gallup has consistently shown that significantly more people believe immigration drives up taxes than those who disagree with that or have no opinion. Three surveys between 2006 and 2010 revealed twice as many people believed immigrants cost taxpayers too much compared to people who think they become productive tax-paying citizens in the long run.
Boomershine pushes back on that view.
“I think what people don't realize is that immigrants, just like others who are working here in the US, are paying into the tax base. And so it's not like it's a pie, and we all have to share the resources in that pie. When 12 million immigrants leave, the pie will be the same size; it will not,” she said.
However, Gonzalez goes back to the humanitarian angle, stating that immigrants are neighbors – not just workers.
“There's a lot of rhetoric around, you know, who's gonna pick your vegetables; it is overwhelmingly dehumanizing to folks by equating their value to provide labor to citizens in the United States,” she said.
Even more concerning to Gonzalez is the situation immigrants face when they’re applying for benefits pending the outcome of a status or asylum case that will allow them to remain in the country lawfully. In those cases, immigrants have to prove they will not be a “public charge,” meaning that families who apply for a green card, for example, must submit their tax returns and show they have enough money to cover their household.
She said with this new administration, the fear among her clients is through accessing these benefits – they will be more easily denied, or worse, that federal authorities could use the information to target households with mixed-immigration status.
The intersection of local law enforcement and ICE
Another one of Gonzalez’s concerns is that if the crackdown on immigrants continues, they will be less likely to assist law enforcement cases. She argues that they want to get anyone’s cooperation when crimes have been committed — so they need witnesses and/or victims of crime to testify against perpetrators.
Gonzalez said that local community policing can only be effective when the public is not afraid to talk with officers, and the specific reason for the U visa “was meant to sort of bridge that gap for both sides.”
Boomershine agreed that if the community is not reassured by local law enforcement, it could “embolden criminals to prey on people that they perceive to be victims, that they perceive to be immigrants.”
Gonzalez also hopes governments in the Cape Fear region don’t pursue the fullest extent of 287(g) models where local law enforcement is deputized to act on behalf of ICE. She thinks ICE can pursue its legal mandate, but local law enforcement's focus is different. Pender County commissioners recently discussed this and decided not to issue a resolution supporting 287(g).
A local conversation has already ensued on adopting ‘sanctuary’ policies. New Hanover County Commissioner Dane Scalise claimed the New Hanover Commission Hispanic-Latino Commission was preparing to ask the county to go that route.
Boomershine, who serves on the Hispanic-Latino Commission, responded on the commission officially asking for this designation: “It didn't come up in our conversations, in our subcommittees, or as a whole when we meet monthly. So I think this was perhaps a way to alienate the immigrant community further and make them the enemies, when really what we're talking about is we have people, human beings here in our community; they're our neighbors. They work alongside us. They go to church with us.”
She added that the commission aimed to identify gaps in services and needs and share those with the commission and local non-profit organizations. Take the language barrier, for example.
Gonzalez also wants the public to know there is some nuance to the remaining silent advice when talking with ICE agents or the advice printed on ‘red cards.’ As a result of a new executive order on ‘expedited removal,’ the entire U.S. is considered a border zone — not just the parts of the country next to the border with Mexico. The former policy stipulated if the person had come to America in the past two weeks — they could be sent back without proceedings. Now, it’s two years. Gonzalez advises immigrants to speak up and show papers if they have documentation that shows they’ve been living in the country for more than two years; otherwise, she said they could be on a plane out of the country. Additionally, if it’s not a raid and the person is at their home, they don’t have to open the door unless there's a judicial warrant.
If they end up in a detention center in Georgia—either Lumpkin or near Atlanta—she recommends giving their family their file number because sometimes their names or spellings are incorrect. If the family needs to support another member, she recommends they have that number ready to give to an attorney.
Hispanic-Latino community in schools
Gonzalez said she has yet to see a workplace-style raid on a school in the region — but she worried about the community being afraid of coming to school or reaching out to the district when their student has been absent, and they run into compulsory attendance laws.
“The likelihood that raids on local schools is lower, in my opinion than the likelihood that those kids missing school as a result of that fear would then result in reporting that could then result in their parents being charged with these lower level misdemeanors that they would then potentially be arrested by local law enforcement, which would then activate ICE,” she said.
Gonzalez said that current law states that ICE should have a judicial warrant if they are coming on campus to arrest someone.
Boomershine said she has seen the fear already play out when families are using markers to write family phone numbers on the arms of their younger children in case the immediate parent or guardians are detained. She said even families with documentation or mixed status are taking these precautions.
She said the families have “a plan now. ‘We know what we're going to do. We don't like that we're in this situation, but we have a plan.’”
Sometimes, the fear comes from hearing the student's name called over the intercom. Before, this was routine, and a student might be called for various reasons. Now, Boomershine said, some students are afraid the call could be because ICE has come for them or a family member.
Pathways to citizenship?
Gonzalez said legitimate ways to help immigrants find pathways to citizenship have failed time and time again. Congress has tried over the decades but has not passed any meaningful reform since 1996, she said, adding, “We're dealing with old systems.”
“The vast percentage of people either that have come into the United States or are brought into the United States because we need to factor in minors and 'Dreamers' and things like that, do not have a legal pathway to immigration status in the United States,” she said.
'Dreamers' are undocumented migrants who came to the country as children. The term dates back to a 2001 bill introduced by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, the DREAM Act. Hatch’s bill was never passed, but the Obama Administration achieved similar goals through executive order under DACA.
Brooks pointed to the administration’s reversal of funding for refugees and the TPS.
“They've cut, you know, they froze the funding for people trying to come in here the right way,” she said.
While Gonzalez said she’s committed to the work, “I've seen, unfortunately, a lot of my colleagues say, 'I'm not doing another four years under this administration. I'm going to switch fields.'”
Brooks said those in the community can help speak for those who can’t.
“I love being an American, and I love this country, but I think that being an American also means that you can and should speak up,” she said.
And how to do that is sometimes fractured, “There's a lot of resentment out there. There's a resentment among non-immigrants, and within the immigrant community, within the Hispanic community, whether you're an immigrant or not, there is resentment. I think it's based out of fear because everyone is in fear right now,” Boomershine said.
She also echoes Brooks' message: “I hope everyone reflects on their own past and what brought their family or ancestors here. Perhaps that's part of the goal: to divide people, create more enemies and chaos, and have everybody turn on each other instead of coming together and helping.”
It’s worth noting that while anti-immigration sentiment has been at its highest in some time, Gallup polling over the last two decades shows that the majority of people consistently say immigrants improve the country’s culture—its arts, music, and food.
Brooks said she’s ready to continue to be a voice for her community and share it.
“Anytime I have shared my culture with other people, they are so happy that I'm sharing that tidbit or that they get to know a little bit more,” she said, with Boomershine interjecting, “especially the pupusas.”
“Yes, exactly, food brings everyone together,” Brooks said.
Prior reporting
- Church World Services Wilmington furloughs staff, asks the community for help
- Federal orders cause chaos and concern for refugee services in the Cape Fear region
- A closer look at immigrants and schools in NHC after the newcomer school debate
- The Mosley Story: Unpacking misinformation and narratives around the newcomer school debate
- New Hanover County commissioners approve Hispanic-Latino Commission
