From the snowy cities to the Mexican border

As light snow fell outside, worshipers gathered at Lincoln United Methodist Church in Chicago to pray and plan what will happen when Donald Trump takes office next week, when the president-elect has promised to begin the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants in US history.

“(Jan. 20) will be here before we know it,” the Rev. Tanya Lozano-Washington told the congregation, after passing out steaming cups of Mexican hot chocolate and coffee to warm the crowd of about 60.

Located in Pilsen, a predominantly Latino neighborhood, the church has long been a center for pro-immigration activists in the city’s large Hispanic community. But Sunday services are now in English only, as in-person Spanish-language services have been canceled.

The decision to move online was made out of fear that those meetings could be targeted by anti-immigration activists or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The incoming president has said he will deport millions of illegal immigrants, threatened workplace raids, and reports suggest he might. remove a longstanding policy that made churches off-limits for ICE arrests.

According to a parishioner, American David Cruseno, “the threat is very real. It is very alive.”

Cruseno said her mother entered the country illegally from Mexico, but has worked and paid taxes in the United States for 30 years.

“With the new administration coming in, it’s almost like a persecution,” he told the BBC. “I feel like we’ve been singled out and targeted in a fashion that’s unfair, even though we cooperate (with) this country endlessly.”

But across the country, more than 1,400 miles (2,253 km) to the south in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, another mainly immigrant community has a very different view of the impending inauguration — a sign of how Latino communities have become severely divided over illegal immigration and Donald. Trump’s approach to the US-Mexico border.

“Immigration is essential … but the right way,” said resident David Porras – a rancher, farmer and botanist.

“But with Trump, we’re going to do well.”

The region is separated from Mexico only by the dark, shallow and narrow water of the river and patches of dense vegetation and mesquite – the locals say that the daily reality of life in the border has increasingly opened the eyes to what many see. such as the dangers of illegal immigration.

“I had families (of migrants) knocking on my front door, asking for water, shelter,” said Amanda Garcia, a resident of Starr County, where nearly 97% of residents identify as Latino, making the counted more Latino. in the United States outside of Puerto Rico.

“We had an incident where a young woman was alone with two men, and you could tell she was tired – and abused.”

In more than a dozen interviews in two of the constituent counties of the Rio Grande Valley – Starr and neighboring Hidalgo – residents described a litany of other border-related incidents, ranging from waking up to migrants on the his property to witness busts of drug cartel houses, or dangerous high-speed chases between the authorities and smugglers.

Many in the most Latino part of Texas are themselves immigrants, or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Once a reliable Democratic stronghold in otherwise “Red” Texas, Starr County swung in Trump’s favor in the 2024 election — the first time the county has been won by Republicans in more than 130 years.

Nationally, Trump garnered about 45% of the Latino vote — a mammoth 14 percentage points compared to the 2020 election.

The victory in Starr County, locals say, was in no small part due to Trump’s stance on the border.

“We live in a country of law and order,” said Demesio Guerrero, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Mexico who lives in the city of Hidalgo, across the international bridge from the cartel-infested Mexican city of Reynosa.

“We have to be able (to tell) who’s coming in and out,” added Mr. Guerrero, speaking in Spanish a few feet from a tall brown metal barrier that represents the end of the United States. “No, this country is lost.”

Like other Trump supporters in the Rio Grande Valley, Mr. Guerrero has said — repeatedly — that he is “not against immigration.”

“But they should do it the right way,” he said. “As others have.”

Trump “is not anti-immigrant, or racist at all,” agreed Marisa Garcia, a resident of Rio Grande City in Starr County.

“We’re just tired of them (undocumented immigrants) coming in and thinking they can do whatever they want on our property or land, and taking advantage of the system,” he added. “It’s not racist to say that things have to change, and we need to take advantage too.”

Support for deportations is so strong that the Texas State Government offered Donald Trump 1,400 acres (567 hectares) of land just outside Rio Grande City to build detention facilities for undocumented migrants – a controversial move that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas described. as “mass caging” that will “fuel civil rights violations.”

While the piece of land — nestled between a quiet farm-to-market road and the Rio Grande — is currently quiet, city officials believe it could ultimately be a boon to the area.

“If you look at it from a development point of view, it’s great for the city’s economy,” Rio Grande city manager Gilberto Millan told the BBC.

“It has some negative connotations, obviously, being a detention area,” he said. “You can see that, but obviously you need a place to house these people.”

The number of migrants coming through Mexico has been on a sharp downward trend – with last month’s crossings the lowest since January 2020

But the problem is still very much alive in the streets of cities like Chicago, far from the southern border.

It is one of several Democratic-led cities that have enacted so-called “sanctuary city” laws that limit local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

In response, by 2022, Republican governors in southern states like Texas and Florida have sent thousands of immigrants north by bus and plane.

Tom Homan, who was tapped by Trump to lead border policy, told a gathering of Republicans in Chicago last month that the Midwest city would be “ground zero” for mass deportations.

“On January 21st, you’re going to be looking for a lot of ICE agents in your city looking for criminals and gang members,” Homan said. “Count on it. It will happen.”

Many local politicians, including the mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, and the governor of the state, JB Pritzker, have continued to support the laws of the sanctuary city, called the “Welcome City” ordinance here.

But politics is not universally loved. In November, Trump made gains in many Latino neighborhoods.

Recently, two Hispanic Democratic legislators tried to change the ordinance and allow some cooperation from the Chicago police with the federal authorities. His measure was blocked on Wednesday by Johnson and his progressive allies.

For now, Lincoln United Methodist worshipers are making plans and watching closely as they see how Trump’s plans unfold.

“I’m scared, but I can’t imagine what undocumented people feel,” said D Camacho, a 21-year-old legal immigrant from Mexico who was among the congregation at the church on Sunday.

Mexican consular officials in Chicago and elsewhere in the United States also said they are working on a mobile app that would allow Mexican migrants to alert relatives and consular officials if they have been detained and could be deported.

Officials in Mexico described the system as a “panic button.”

Lincoln United organizers also reached out to legal experts, advising locals on how to take care of their finances or arrange child care in case of deportation and help create ID cards with members’ details of the immigrant family and other information in English.

And many second-generation immigrants here said they worked to improve their Spanish, to be able to convey legal information or translate for migrants interviewed by the authorities.

“If someone with five children is taken, who will take the children? Will they go to social services? Will the family be divided?” said Rev. Emma Lozano – Reverend Tanya Lozano-Washington’s mother and a longtime community activist and church elder.

“These are the kinds of questions people have,” he said. “‘How can we defend our families – what’s the plan?'”