Fear of deportation spreads among Chicago immigrants: ‘We are locked inside our homes’

The mood of residents in migrant neighborhoods on the outskirts of Chicago as a result of the Trump administration’s offensive against illegal immigration ranges from fear to dismay to paralyzing panic. In Hermosa, where the population is predominantly Hispanic, there is not a soul on the streets, not a single pedestrian — those new pariahs of civilization who lack a car in a country built for the automobile. Equally empty are the bus stop shelters, the few existing public parks, with their grass worn and scorched by the snow, and the local businesses: the taquerias and pupuserias where you can see right through the deserted storefront windows.

Maria, a Mexican woman without legal papers despite having lived in the United States for 30 years, confesses that she goes grocery shopping and to the laundromat very early in the morning, and that for the past week she has avoided shopping malls and “places with large crowds, because the ICE agents [the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement] focus on those places.” Each ICE precinct, 25 across the country, has been ordered to make at least 75 arrests a day. Trump’s first week in the White House has resulted in more than 3,500 arrests, of which 1,179 were made in 24 hours.

For Maria, the ICE agents in charge of identifying foreigners in the first part of the offensive — theoretically aimed at migrants with criminal records — “do not distinguish between good and bad.” “You know, I don’t see anything wrong with deporting criminals, but there are many of us who earn an honest living and contribute to the economy of this country with our taxes,” she adds. As her only safeguard, Maria has her Illinois state ID card, her Social Security number, her driver’s license and a VTC license, renewed annually, but all of this, she admits, would be of no use to her “if things get ugly.” “Because I don’t have any real papers, and neither do any of my brothers,” she explains.

Hence their confinement, for fear of a chance encounter with the migras, the immigration agents: chance increases the feeling of fear. “Thanks to the pandemic we learned to keep the pantry well stocked, so it is not difficult for us to be locked up inside the house. If we are missing something, we go out into the street discreetly, trying not to be seen by anyone… I have to keep working, but I start my day at six in the morning and I don’t think that at that time I will run into ICE, although you never know…”

Information channels

Maria says that ever since Trump’s election victory, neighborhood networks have been buzzing with information about searches at this or that house, advice on how to avoid an encounter, or the suspicious presence of cars in the neighborhood, “because in some places the agents don’t come in marked vans, but in small, discreet black cars,” she says. That explains the advice that if someone asks for directions from the back of a dark vehicle at dusk, you should walk away quickly. The few migrants who do venture out onto the streets do so by way of back roads and alleys.

Two blocks away from where Maria lives, Pastor Marvin del Rios of Starting Point Baptist Church says he would have no choice but to obey the law if one day an ICE patrol showed up at his church looking for a suspect. “But only with a court order, and with the explicit name of the person they are looking for. I am not going to allow a general random search, much less let them through if they show up without a warrant,” he says.

Pastor Del Ríos’ church, which offers bilingual services and a specific one for migrants, is also a shelter now holding 17 people, all men. It is one of the shelters that relieved the pressure from the city government when migrants from the border began arriving in Chicago, a sanctuary city governed by Democrats, in the spring of 2022. “In 18 months, about 70 have passed through here, and now 17 of them with various backgrounds and ages are living with us.”

During their stay at the parish, the pastor explains, they receive, in addition to a bed and food, the necessary help to process their work permits. “Today [Tuesday] they are all out at work, thank God. We were already bringing in people from the municipal shelters, but since the latter shut down, the last one in December, they are coming directly to us,” he explains.

Erbin Escalona, a Venezuelan lawyer who crossed the Darién jungle and arrived in Chicago in November 2023, at the height of the latest migration crisis, learned about the Starting Point church at a municipal shelter, and quickly joined the community as a parishioner and volunteer. Today, with a temporary residence permit, he helps process asylum applications in his free time, after putting in his shift as a security guard at a school: Mexicans who claim persecution by a drug cartel; a Colombian woman who says she was discriminated against back home for being part of the LGBTQ+ community; Haitians, Hondurans, “people from all over Latin America,” he explains, showing a handful of forms. “I had never handled immigration matters, but my experience as a lawyer here is helpful.”

The church pastor notes that his wards agree with the idea of sending criminals back, “because they feel that [immigrants as a whole] are getting a bad reputation because of them. But we are receiving information that when the agents go to a business to arrest someone in particular, they take everyone they find, also people with minor offenses, such as a ticket for driving without a license.” The “everyone” that Del Ríos alludes to points to specific characteristics: dark skin, short statures. It’s a racial profiling that feels like racism, agrees the pastor without actually using the word.

Del Ríos doesn’t talk about politics either, but he does talk about laws: “If [the agents] come to the church without a warrant and I don’t let them in, they can go ahead and report me. I know my rights. We’re not helping criminals, just people who are being persecuted. They say they’re looking for criminals, but the innocent are paying for the sinners.” Meanwhile, the 17 migrants living at the church go out into the street professing their rights, however weak these may be: the right to a phone call, to remain silent, to call a lawyer.

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