The U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration submitted an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday in an effort to resume the rapid deportations of Venezuelans accused of gang ties under a wartime law that a lower court blocked.
Acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris argued in a brief to the Supreme Court that a federal judge’s temporary restraining order this month, and an appeals court ruling Wednesday upholding it, wrongly denied President Donald Trump the authority to make decisions about national security operations, including the removal of Venezuelan nationals the administration says are subject to the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
“The district court’s orders have rebuffed the President’s judgments as to how to protect the Nation against foreign terrorist organizations and risk debilitating effects for delicate foreign negotiations,” Harris wrote in her request to the court.
The Alien Enemies Act had only been invoked three times, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.
The Trump administration has tried to use it in a novel way, when the nation is not officially at war. The administration designated the Tren de Aragua – a gang that originated in Venezuela – as a foreign terrorist group, and argued that any Venezuelan nationals aged 14 and older with suspected ties to the gang are subject to the proclamation.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg placed a temporary restraining order on the Trump administration’s use of the law this month, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the order this week. The administration asked the Supreme Court to lift the order.
“As long as the orders remain in force, the United States is unable to rely on the Proclamation to remove dangerous affiliates with a foreign terrorist organization—even if the United States receives indications that particular (Tren de Aragua) members are about to take destabilizing or infiltrating actions,” Harris said Friday.
Extending restraining order
Boasberg’s temporary restraining order placed on the use of the Alien Enemies Act is set to expire Saturday. The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit, requested that order be extended for an additional two weeks.
The ACLU also plans to request Boasberg issue a preliminary injunction, which would block the administration from deportations under the act until the lawsuit is complete. A hearing is set for April 8.
Boasberg has rejected the Trump administration’s move to lift his restraining order, on the grounds that those subject to the Alien Enemies Act should have due process to challenge those accusations.
At the D.C. Circuit this week, Department of Justice attorneys for the Trump administration argued that those subject to the proclamation do not need to be notified they are being removed under the Alien Enemies Act. The Trump administration also argued that those who fall under the Alien Enemies Act can bring a challenge of their detention under a habeas corpus claim.
Defied verbal order
The White House quietly implemented the act on March 15 and a verbal restraining order given by Boasberg that day to block it went into effect hours later.
In that order, Boasberg barred the Trump administration from applying the act but three deportation planes landed in El Salvador after the order was issued. The Trump administration has argued that his verbal order was not enforceable.
Boasberg also ordered that anyone subject to the Alien Enemies Act be returned to the U.S., but federal immigration agents took more than 250 men aboard the three flights to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Boasberg has vowed to determine if the Trump administration violated his restraining order in sending the deportation planes to El Salvador, but Attorney General Pam Bondi invoked the “state secrets privilege” to refuse to answer detailed questions about the flights.
Friday’s emergency request is one of several immigration-related appeals the Trump administration has made to the high court, such as the request to lift several nationwide injunctions placed on the president’s executive order that ends the constitutional right of birthright citizenship.
A section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall near El Paso, Texas, on June 6, 2024. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Among the flurry of executive orders President Donald Trump signed on the first day he returned to the White House are five that lay out the use of military forces within the U.S. borders and extend other executive powers to speed up the president’s immigration crackdown.
The administration has engendered huge controversy in recent days by employing the orders and a presidential proclamation to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelan migrants. Administration officials described the Venezuelans as gang members, put them on flights and sent them to a huge prison in El Salvador.
The wartime Alien Enemies Act, used only three times before, allows the president to detain and deport anyone 14 and older who is a national from a country the United States deems an enemy.
Together, the interlocking executive orders and proclamation could provide the resources and legal footing needed for the Trump administration’s plans to deploy the military to deport and detain millions of people who are living in the United States without permanent legal status.
National security and military experts interviewed by States Newsroom raised concerns about this domestic deployment of armed forces that could result in violations of civil liberties, as well as the detainment and deportation of immigrants without due process.
Additionally, the broad actions by the executive branch would test the courts on what guardrails, if any, could be placed on the president. Trump earlier this week in a social media post called for the impeachment of the judge who questioned his use of the Alien Enemies Act in the case of the Venezuelans, bringing a stunning rebuke by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
David Sacks, President Donald Trump’s “AI and Crypto Czar”, speaks to Trump as he signs a series of executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 23, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Besides the Alien Enemies Act, a second archaic law Trump is gearing up to invoke is the Insurrection Act of 1807. It gives the president the power to call on the military during an emergency to curb civilian unrest or enforce federal law in a crisis.
The Insurrection Act is also a statutory exception in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.
Trump vowed to use both the Insurrection Act and the Alien Enemies Act while he campaigned for a second term.
“Invoking the Insurrection Act for immigration enforcement … would be unprecedented,” said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “It would be an abuse, both because it’s not necessary, under the circumstances, and also because this is not what the Insurrection Act is for.”
Nonetheless, one Trump executive order directs the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense to issue a report by April 20 to the president with recommendations on whether or not to use the Insurrection Act to aid in mass deportations.
Orders woven together into an agenda
Trump’s five executive orders signed on Inauguration Day are:
The administration eyes its next moves while apprehensions at the southern border have plummeted to their lowest level in 25 years, with 8,347 encounters for February, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
The last time the Border Patrol averaged roughly 8,000 apprehensions per month in a fiscal year was in 1968, according to historical data obtained by the Texas Tribune.
In the executive order titled Securing our Borders, the Trump administration lays out its objectives for that U.S.-Mexico border, such as building barriers and barring migrants from entering the U.S. To carry that out, the president signed another executive order that declared a national emergency.
Chris Mirasola, a professor and national security expert at the University of Houston Law Center, said for roughly 20 years, there has been a military presence at the southern border assisting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with immigration enforcement.
“What made the Trump executive orders interesting was the kind of escalation trajectory that they kind of mapped out for us,” Mirasola said, noting the likely use of the Insurrection Act and Alien Enemies Act.
Emory University School of Law professor Mark Nevitt, a national security expert who also served in the Navy, notes the executive order declaring a national emergency is limited to the geographic location of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“He’s not tasking (Homeland Security Secretary Kristi) Noem to come up with a nationwide immigration enforcement. Having said that, of course, he can change (his mind), he’s the president,” he said.
Sending military to the southern border stretches back to former President George W. Bush in 2006. Over a two-year period, more than 30,000 Army and Air National Guard personnel were sent to the southern border to assist with numerous migrants from Central America.
Northern Command
Continued coordination between Defense and Homeland Security is laid out in another of the executive orders, the one on “clarifying the military’s role,” that reorganizes the U.S. Northern Command to focus on border security.
Northern Command, established after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to coordinate military and homeland security support with civilian authorities, under the Trump executive order has a new mission “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”
The legal underpinnings for Northern Command to carry this out, Mirasola said, are provisions in the Insurrection Act, which he adds is likely to face its own legal challenge.
“I kind of see this, perhaps surprisingly, long ramp up being a way for them to establish a factual record that they could use in litigation,” he said of the executive order that requests a report from DHS and DOD by April 20.
Trump does not need a report or recommendation to invoke the Insurrection Act. It is an existing presidential authority granting him access to use all federal military forces, more than 1 million members. But his executive orders would undergird his expected use of the act.
“I think it’s no surprise that he’s thinking about using the military for immigration enforcement,” Nevitt said of the president.
The request for a report by April 20, Nevitt said, could be “a way to set up the politics of declaring the Insurrection Act.”
Deported migrants queue to receive an essential items bag during the arrival of a group of deported Salvadorans at Gerencia de Atención al Migrante on Feb. 12, 2025 in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)
Historically the Insurrection Act, which has only been invoked 30 times, is typically focused on an area of great civil unrest that has overwhelmed law enforcement, Nevitt said.
The last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was 1992, during the Los Angeles riots, after four white police officers were acquitted in the brutal beating of Black motorist Rodney King.
Federal troops were deployed with local law enforcement to a domestic violence situation. Because of the difference in training between the two, it resulted in soldiers opening fire onto a Los Angeles residence. No one was injured, but more than 200 bullets were fired.
“Soldiers are not trained to do law enforcement,” Nunn, with the Brennan Center, said.
He added that this kind of use could also lead to violations of civil liberties, even though the use of the Insurrection Act does not suspend constitutional rights and he argues is not limitless.
“When the military is operating under the Insurrection Act, they are assisting civilian authorities, not taking their place,” Nunn said.
‘The magic word’
Two of the executive orders — one designating cartels as terrorist organizations and another on protection of the states — could lead to the rapid detention and deportation of immigrants by using the Alien Enemies Act.
“In one of those early executive orders is a magic word that you should be sensitive to,” said Stephen Dycus, a professor in national security law at the Vermont Law School. “And the magic word is ‘invasion.’”
The Trump administration designated the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as a terrorist organization in its use in mid-March of the Alien Enemies Act.
A federal judge has already blocked the use of the law. However, civil rights groups charge that the Trump administration continued to use the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants, and a federal judge is demanding clear answers from the administration about the deportation flights.
The Trump administration has defended the deportation flights and Trump has cited his duty to protect Americans from an “invasion.”
“The big question, obviously, is, what constitutes an invasion?” Dycus asked. “In the first Trump administration, the influx of immigrants from the southwest were characterized that way. So I think that’s part of the groundwork that’s being laid.”
Ilya Somin, an expert in constitutional law and professor at George Mason University, disagrees with the Trump administration’s argument declaring the Tren de Aragua gang as an “invasion” in order to form the legal basis for using the Alien Enemies Act.
The use of the act can circumvent judicial proceedings, based on an immigrant’s country of origin. It’s been invoked in the War of 1812, World War I and World War II and most recently led to the Japanese internment camps.
“The attempt to declare them to be terrorist organizations could be part of an effort to sort of get courts to defer and to accept the invasion framing, and possibly also to accept the use of the Alien Enemies Act,” Somin said.
Targeting Venezuela
In speeches, rallies and social media posts, Trump has often accused Venezuela of sending criminals and gang members to the U.S., despite during his first administration granting deportation protections for Venezuelans, citing the political and economic instability of the Maduro regime.
The Trump administration has pressured the Venezuela government to begin accepting deportation flights of its nationals. Noem has already moved to end temporary protected status for one group of 350,000 Venezuelans, subjecting them to fast-track deportations. Noem cited gang activity as one of her factors in not extending protections.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters on Jan. 28, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images)
Somin said that for the Alien Enemies Act to be used, an “invasion” needs to be undertaken by a foreign government.
“Even if the cartels are terrorist organizations, which I deny, they are not foreign governments,” he said.
Katherine Yon Ebright, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, said that using the act to go after suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang could ensnare many Venezuelan immigrants, regardless of legal status.
“You’re getting the ability, really, to target any Venezuelan, age 14 (and up), who’s not a U.S. citizen,” she said of the Alien Enemies Act. “And you don’t have to explain yourself, you don’t have to prove anything.”
Guantanamo
Using a memo rather than an executive order, although related, the Trump administration has already ramped up use of the military in immigration duties, using military aircraft to return migrants to their home countries or to send immigrants to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The base was used to house suspected terrorists in the 9/11 attacks.
“I think it’s actually a bellwether for understanding how far this escalation trajectory the administration plans to go, because the detention that’s happening at Guantanamo Bay is a big concern,” Mirasola said.
The use of the naval base comes as the Trump administration has tried to increase detention bed space capacity, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is only funded to hold roughly 41,500 beds across the country.
Trump has instructed his administration to hold up to 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo. There are currently no immigrants detained at the base, though its use has not been ruled out.
But the actions of signing executive orders or memos or proclamations can only go so far, experts say.
“Implementing his commitment to use the military to round up immigrants is not going to be easy,” Dycus, of Vermont Law, said. “Logistically, it’s going to really take a lot of effort and a lot of personnel to do it.”
A Texas National Guardsman observes as Border Patrol agents pat down migrants who have surrendered themselves for processing, May 10, 2023. (Photo by Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is gearing up to militarize a stretch of the southern border, according to a Washington Post report Thursday, raising concerns from experts that the move would put U.S. military members in direct contact with migrants, a possible violation of federal law.
The White House is mulling the creation of a military satellite installation across the 60-foot-deep strip of federal land known as the Roosevelt Reservation, according to the report.
The move would create a military buffer zone stretching across the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, California and New Mexico, and mean any migrant crossing into the United States would be trespassing on a military base, allowing active-duty troops to hold them until border patrol agents arrive.
Nearly 10,000 military personnel have already been deployed to the southern border, but creating the military buffer zone would be an escalation of the Trump administration’s ramp-up of the use of the U.S. military in its plans for mass deportation of immigrants without permanent legal status, which experts say would be illegal.
“The use of active-duty military for what clearly amounts to law enforcement on the border is absolutely, plainly illegal,” Stephen Dycus, a professor in national security law at the Vermont Law School, said during a Thursday interview. “It’s a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.”
The 1878 law generally prohibits the military from being used in domestic law enforcement.
Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight at the Washington Office of Latin America, a research and advocacy group that aims to advance human rights in North and South America, said the escalation of military presence at the border is new.
He added that the military being used to operate deportation flights has “involved an uncomfortable amount of contact between soldiers and migrants.”
“Most of the military that have been sent (to the border) over the years have been a couple thousand National Guard members at a time — a pretty low-level mission,” Isacson said. “So that chance of contact between the soldiers and civilians on U.S. soil (was) very, very, very, very slim. That’s all changing now.”
A Pentagon spokesperson told States Newsroom in an email Thursday that the department has “nothing to announce at this time” regarding the establishment of a base along stretches of the border.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The scenario could spark further legal challenges against the Trump administration, which is already in hot water for potentially defying a federal judge’s order to halt deportation flights of Venezuelans under the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
Transformation of military role
While sending activity duty to the southern border has occurred for more than 20 years in intelligence and logistics roles, military members do not engage in immigration enforcement.
During a visit to the border Feb. 3, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters “guys and gals of my generation have spent decades in foreign countries guarding other people’s borders. It’s about time we secure our own border.”
“All options are on the table,” Hegseth said.
Joseph Nunn, liberty and national security counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, said during a Thursday interview he would expect the Trump administration to face lawsuits for essentially using the military for civilian law enforcement.
“This is a transparent ruse to try to evade the Posse Comitatus Act by taking advantage of something called the military purpose doctrine,” Nunn said.
Under that doctrine, Nunn said, the military can maintain order or take action to further other military purposes, even if the action does have incidental benefits to civilian law enforcement. For example, if a drunken driver attempts to drive onto a base, military police can detain them before handing them over to civilian law enforcement.
But Nunn said specifically installing a base along the border as a way for the military to detain migrants as trespassers has not been tried before.
“It’s an abuse of the doctrine and one that the courts should reject because in that circumstance the military installation will have been created and the soldiers will have been stationed there for the purpose of assisting with a civilian law enforcement operation,” Nunn said. “That is immigration enforcement.”
Migrant encounters down
Transferring federal land to the Department of Defense, which because it’s fewer than 5,000 acres doesn’t need congressional approval, comes at a time when border encounters are relatively low.
Apprehensions at the southern border have plummeted to their lowest level in 25 years, with 8,347 encounters reported in February, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
The trend started in February of last year due to Mexico increasing immigration enforcement and policies under the Biden administration that limited asylum claims between ports of entry, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan immigration think tank.
“As with any change in administration, and this was true of the first Trump administration, because of the general rhetoric around immigration, we did see kind of an initial decrease, so it’s not altogether surprising to see that decrease,” Putzel-Kavanaugh, who studies migration trends along the border, said.
“There’s kind of a general wait-and-see period of people trying to figure out what makes the most sense in terms of their own needs and in their journey,” she added.
The sections along the southern border that the Trump administration is eyeing – U.S. Border Patrol sectors based in San Diego; Tucson, Arizona; and El Paso, Texas – are “consistently the busiest,” she said.
Putzel-Kavanaugh added that it’s typical for migration patterns between sectors to change.
“I think it’s certainly plausible to assume that, if they have this militarization campaign across sort of the western side of the border, it’s likely that flows will then start going east,” she said.
Reaction from New Mexico lawmakers
Democrats slammed the idea, questioning why defense funding should be used at the border as global conflict increases.
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat, expressed skepticism about relying on defense resources to solve migration issues.
“Securing our border and protecting the safety of New Mexicans is a top priority, which is why I supported the bipartisan border security agreement — an effort that was ultimately killed by then-candidate Donald Trump,” Luján said in a statement.
“Diverting military resources for this purpose would weaken our military readiness. There is broad bipartisan consensus that we need comprehensive immigration reform and stronger border security, but not at the expense of existing defense missions.”
Rep. Gabe Vasquez, also a New Mexico Democrat, said in a statement the reported plan is “yet another reckless and wasteful proposal that does nothing to fix our broken immigration system.”
“In a time of global uncertainty, our military resources are best used to combat serious international threats abroad,” Vasquez said.
The offices for the Republican-led Senate and House committees on the Armed Forces did not respond to requests for comment.
Source New Mexico editor Julia Goldberg contributed to this report.
There’s no readily available evidence Susan Crawford has supported stopping deportations of illegal immigrants or protecting sanctuary cities, as a Republican attack ad claims.
Sanctuary communities limit how much they help authorities with deportations.
Crawford, a liberal, faces conservative Brad Schimel in the nonpartisan April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
The attack on Crawford was made by the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national group that works to elect Republicans to state offices.
The group provided Wisconsin Watch no evidence to back its claim. A spokesperson cited Democratic support for Crawford and Democratic opposition to cooperating with deportations, but nothing Crawford said on the topics. Searches of past Crawford statements found nothing.
The ad also claims Crawford would “let criminals roam free,” referring to a man convicted of touching girls’ private parts in a club swimming pool. Crawford sentenced the man in 2020 to four years in prison; a prosecutor had requested 10 years.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
José Tlaxcala worked framing houses in Salem, Oregon, until he sustained a spinal injury and moved back to San Juan Texhuácan. People will continue crossing the border to work in the U.S., regardless of what politicians say, because of 'economic necessity' he says. | Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner
VERACRUZ, MEXICO — President Donald Trump’s threats to deport millions of Mexicans who are working in the U.S. without authorization does not have a large number fleeing the U.S. in fear, nor will it stop Mexican citizens from crossing the border to find work, according to many residents who shared their stories with the Wisconsin Examiner.
During the second week of President Donald Trump’s new administration, as rumors swirled about a surge in deportation raids across the country, a couple of Wisconsin dairy farmers and a dozen of their neighbors and relatives traveled to rural southern Mexico to visit the families of the farmers’ Mexican employees. Wisconsin Examiner editor Ruth Conniff joined them. Her series, Midwest Mexico, looks at the bond between rural people in the two countries.
“Yes, it has put the brakes on things a bit, I know people who were thinking of going and now they’re waiting,” said Fatima Tepole, who worked on a dairy farm in Minnesota for four years, earning money to build her house and start a school supply store in San Juan Texhuácan. “Of course it caused people to pause. It now costs $15,000 to cross the border. If they send you back? Of course you are going to stop and think about that.”
But, she added. “They are going to try again when things calm down. It’s inevitable.”
Tepole’s friend Blanca Hernández, a teacher at a bilingual Spanish/Nahuatl school, agreed. She crossed the border to work in the U.S. three times, smuggling herself in the trunk of a car and nearly suffocating on her way to take a factory job in North Carolina and returning two more times to milk cows in Wisconsin. She saved enough money to build her house and buy a car before returning home. “Yes, there are people who are afraid now,” she said. “But Mexicans are stubborn. They are going to keep immigrating.”
José Tlaxcala says no politician in either country has changed the underlying drivers of immigration. “People in Mexico continue to think about going to the U.S. to work because of economic necessity,” he said.
Fatima Tepole and Mercedes Falk in front of Tepole’s school supply store in San Juan Texhuácan | Photo courtesy Puentes/Bridges
In his opinion, that’s the Mexican government’s fault. “The Mexican government isn’t doing enough. There’s not enough good work for the people,” Tlaxcala said. In the area where he lives, around San Juan Texhuácan, most people work in agriculture, growing coffee and corn, partly for subsistence and partly to sell. But the prices for agricultural products are very low. “It’s not enough to support a family,” Tlaxcala explained
A Stateline analysis of U.S. Census community survey data in 2018 found a sudden drop in the Mexican immigrant population in the U.S. between 2016 and 2017. More than 300,000 people went home that year, which experts attributed to deportation threats in the first Trump administration as well as improving job prospects in Mexico. Mexicans still represent the largest group of immigrants living in the U.S., but their numbers have been declining for more than a decade, from a peak of 11.7 million in 2010 to 10.91 million in 2023.
It’s too soon to tell if the second Trump administration, with its even more aggressive focus on rooting out immigrants, pushes down those numbers more.
But anecdotally, at least among dairy workers in the Midwest, that doesn’t seem to be the case — at least for now.
“The concern was significantly more in the last Trump administration,” says Wisconsin dairy farmer John Rosenow, who has 13 employees from Mexico. “Especially people with families were afraid of being deported and separated from their children. Farmers were typically running three or four people short … I haven’t seen that this time.”
Blanca Hernández with the cow figurines she keeps in her house, a reminder of her days milking cows on a Wisconsin dairy. | Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner
High-profile immigration raids in the second Trump administration have so far focused on major cities, including Chicago, New York, Denver and Los Angeles. Some people who worked in restaurants have been deported, and have been able to return to the villages Rosenow recently visited in rural Veracruz.
“I have a friend who was deported,” said Tepole. “He went to get food one day and they grabbed him and sent him back, just like that, after eight years. Luckily, he had already built his house.”
As Rosenow traveled among mountain villages, meeting family members of his dairy workers, he stopped to see a large cement house one of his current employees was building. Guadelupe Maxtle Salas was plastering a wall inside. He showed us the attached garage where Rosenow’s employee intends to set up shop as an auto mechanic when he finally returns.
Maxtle Salas takes a break from plastering to greet John Rosenow. | Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner
Maxtle Salas worked in the U.S. from the age of 14 until he was 19, he said. He milked cows on a dairy farm not far from Rosenow’s. He is thinking about going back to the U.S. after he finishes helping to build the house. He had applied for a work visa and then, when Trump took office, the app that allowed him to get the visa was abruptly cancelled. “I lost my chance,” he said. Now he thinks he might go illegally. “If I get there, I’ll look for you,” he told Rosenow.
Tlaxcala, 30, won’t be going back because of an injury that prevents him from resuming the heavy labor he did when he was in the U.S. He came back home one year ago. He was working in construction in Salem, Oregon, framing houses, when a beam fell on his back, fracturing two disks in his spine.
He had been working abroad for five years, sending home money to support his family in San Juan Texhuácan. After the accident, he decided it was time to come home.
He doesn’t blame his employer for what happened.
“After I hurt my back I couldn’t work. That’s the risk I took,” he said. “Unfortunately, I was working without insurance – illegally. My employer was not going to be responsible if I was hurt. I knew that.”
His employer paid the hospital bill. But Tlaxcala wasn’t eligible for unemployment benefits. Since returning home, he hasn’t been able to afford medical attention to deal with continuing problems with his spine.
Immigrant workers who don’t have authorization in the U.S. are barred from receiving unemployment benefits even though they pay into the system through tax withholdings. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, workers without authorization paid $1.8 billion into unemployment insurance, a joint federal and state program, in 2024. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 12 states created programs to temporarily provide unemployment benefits to excluded workers. Only Colorado has made its program permanent.
A view from the home in Mexico of a dairy worker in Wisconsin. | Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner
Asked if the risk he took to work without protection in the U.S. was worth it, Tlaxcala laughed. “Maybe yes, maybe no,” he said.
“It depends on your situation. If you’re lucky nothing happens to you.”
It cost Tlaxcala $11,000 to cross the border, he said. “Obviously it was a big risk. You have to deal with organized crime in the north of the country to go through the desert. The cartels are still in control. Every person who crosses the border puts his life in the hands of the organized crime syndicates. It seems necessary to us. I know a lot of people who have died trying to cross.”
Like Tepole and Hernández, he doubts the deportation threats will have a big impact on Mexican workers.
“It’s just politics,” he said. “It’s the same as in Mexico. Politicians say lots of things they don’t follow through with. Mexicans understand that.” For example, he said, for generations, Mexican politicians have said they are going to end poverty. “They don’t,” Tlaxcala said.
“When I was growing up I felt that I didn’t have things that I needed.” he added. “I had to go to school in broken down shoes. Sometimes I didn’t have shoes. I didn’t have a backpack, and I wore old, worn out clothing – for lack of money. I was determined to do something about that.”
Interior of a house built by a woman who works for dairy farmer Stan Linder in Wisconsin and has been sending money home for many years to build this house in Tepanzacualco, Mexico. | Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner
Before he went to the U.S., Tlaxcala worked as a truck driver in Mexico. But the only way to get ahead, he said, is to start a business and it was all he could do to come up with the initial investment to get his store going. “I had to use all of the money I earned to pay off the bank. By working in the United States, little by little I could get ahead.”
After working abroad for five years, he was able to afford to pay off his debts, buy a house and finance his business, a small store. “Bank loans, credit — you can’t cover those things with a regular salary here,” he said.
Another reason Tlaxcala doesn’t believe millions of Mexicans will be deported, he said, is the sheer number of immigrants he saw when he was living in the U.S. “In Salem 30-40% of the population is Latino. I’d go to Walmart and see people from my village,” he said. “Plus, it’s very heavy work — construction, roofing — and it doesn’t pay well. They need people.”
In the U.S., 1 in 4 construction workers is an immigrant, according to a National Association of Home Builders report that emphasizes the industry’s reliance on immigrant labor as well as a significant labor shortage. “The concentration of immigrants is particularly high in construction trades essential for home building,” the report found, including plasterers and stucco masons (64%) drywall/ceiling tile installers (52%), painters, (48%) and roofers (47%).
By building houses in the U.S. so they can send home money to build houses in Mexico, Mexican workers are fueling the economies of both countries.
“I understand that there are people who do bad things and those people should be sent back,” said Tepole. “But the manual labor force that is strengthening the country? Most of them are Mexicans.”
This story was originally published by ProPublica.
A blender, still in its box, won at a grocery store raffle. Framed photos from a child’s birthday party. A rabbit-hair felt sombrero and a pair of brown leather boots that cost more than half a week’s pay.
Box by box, the Nicaraguans who milk the cows and clean the pens on Wisconsin’s dairy farms, who wash dishes at its restaurants and fill lines on its factory floors, are sending home their most prized possessions, bracing for the impact of President Donald Trump’s mass deportations.
In the contents of the boxes is a portrait of a community under pressure. The Nicaraguans are as consumed as everyone else by the unfolding of Trump 2.0, wondering whether the bluster about deporting millions of people, most of whom live quiet lives far from the southern border, is going to mean anything in the Wisconsin towns where they’ve settled. For now, many are staying in their homes, behind drawn curtains, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as they travel to and from work or pick up their kids from school. Few have given up on their lives in America, but they’re realistic about what may be coming. Methodically, they have begun packing their most cherished belongings into boxes and barrels and shipping them to relatives back in Nicaragua, ahead of their own anticipated deportations.
“We don’t have much, but what we do have is important,” said Joaquín, the man with the love of western boots and sombreros. He’s 35 years old and has worked over the last three years as a cook at the restaurant below his apartment. “We have worked so hard and sacrificed so much in order to acquire these things,” he added.
The packing is happening all across Wisconsin, a state that in recent years has become a top destination for Nicaraguans who say they are fleeing poverty and government repression. And it is happening among immigrants of varying legal statuses. There are the undocumented dairy workers who came more than a decade ago and were the first from their rural communities to settle in Wisconsin. And there are the more recent arrivals, including asylum-seekers who have permission to live and work in the U.S. as they await their day in immigration court.
Nobody feels safe from Trump and his promises; in just his first week back in office, the president moved to end birthright citizenship, sent hundreds of military troops to the southern border and launched a flashy, multi-agency operation to find and detain immigrants in Chicago, only a few hundred miles away.
Yesenia Meza, a community health worker in central Wisconsin, began hearing from families soon after Trump’s election; they wanted help obtaining the documents they might need if they have to suddenly leave the country with their U.S.-born children, or have those children sent to them if they are deported. When she visited their apartments, Meza said, she was stunned to discover they had spent hundreds of dollars on refrigerator-sized boxes and blue plastic barrels that they’d stuffed with nearly “everything that they own, their most precious belongings” and were shipping to their home country.
At one home, she watched an immigrant mother climb into a half-packed box and announce, “I’m going to mail myself.” Meza knew she was joking. But some of the immigrants she knew had already left. And if more people go, she wonders what impact their departures — whether voluntary or forced — will have on the local economy. Immigrants in the area work on farms, in cheese-processing factories and in a chicken plant — the kind of jobs, she said, that nobody else wants. She’s talked to some of the employers before and knows “they’re always short-staffed,” Meza said. “They’re going to be more short-staffed now when people start going back home.”
Recently, on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, I traveled to Wisconsin along with photographer Benjamin Rasmussen to capture what sounded like the beginning of a community coming undone. We talked to Nicaraguans in their kitchens and bedrooms, and in restaurants and grocery stores that have sprung up to cater to them. Many of the people we met either were packing themselves or knew someone else who was, or both.
Some were almost embarrassed to show us what they were packing — items that might have been considered frivolous or extravagant back home. Nicaragua was already one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere before its government took a turn toward authoritarianism and repression, further sinking the economy. But thanks to their working-class jobs at American factories and restaurants, they could afford these things, and they were determined to hold on to them. Some of their belongings carried memories of loved ones or of special occasions. Other items were more practical, tools that might help them get started again in Nicaragua.
From the stories these immigrants told about their belongings emerged others, stories about what had brought them to this country and what they have been able to achieve here. They spoke about the panic that now traps them in their homes and keeps them up at night. And they shared their hopes and fears about what it might mean to start over in a country they fled.
Yaceth plans to send a plastic barrel filled with shoes to her mother in Nicaragua for safekeeping. (Benjamin Rasmussen for ProPublica)
(Benjamin Rasmussen for ProPublica)
What’s in the boxes
Yaceth’s guilty pleasure is shoes. The 38-year-old left Nicaragua nearly three years ago and works in the same restaurant kitchen as Joaquín. Her wages allowed her to buy a pair or so a month on Amazon, mostly Keds lace-up sneakers, though she also owns glittery stilettos and knee-high red boots. The boxes fill the top half of her closet. Some pairs have never been worn.
We stood along the edge of her bed, admiring her collection. “I’m a bit of an aficionado,” she said sheepishly. Like the other immigrants we spoke with, Yaceth asked not to be identified by her full name to lessen the risk of deportation.
Yaceth said she stopped buying shoes after Trump’s election, uncertain how her life, not to mention her finances, might change once he took office. By the time we met, she had already packed one box of belongings and sent it to her mother in Estelí, a city in northwestern Nicaragua. In the corner of her already crowded bedroom, she kept a blue plastic barrel, which is where she’d planned to put the shoes, hoping it would keep them dry and undamaged during the shipping. If she goes, they’re going, too.
She rents a room in the apartment of another family. They, too, are thinking about what it might look like to return to Nicaragua. Hugo, 33, is setting aside items that might help him make a living back in his hometown of Somoto, about an hour and a half north of Estelí. This includes a Cuisinart digital air fryer he bought with his wages from a sheet-metal factory. Hugo used to sell hot dogs and hamburgers at a fast food stand in Somoto. If he has to return, he envisions starting another food business. The air fryer would help.
‘Everything that Trump says is against us. It makes you feel terrible.’
Hugo plans to send an air fryer to Nicaragua in the hopes of using it to start a business if he’s deported. (Benjamin Rasmussen for ProPublica)
(Benjamin Rasmussen for ProPublica)
We visited a new Nicaraguan restaurant in Waunakee, a village in Dane County that’s seen significant numbers of Nicaraguan arrivals in recent years. One diner, a 49-year-old undocumented dairy worker, told me he plans to send barber trimmers and other supplies for the barbershop he’d like to open up if he’s deported. As we spoke, his dinner companion called a friend who lives a few towns away and handed me the phone; that man, also a dairy worker, told me he is sending back power tools he bought on Facebook Marketplace that are expensive and difficult to find in Nicaragua.
Other immigrants expressed deep uncertainty about whether they might face jail time or worse if they are deported, due to their previous involvement in political activities against the Nicaraguan government. If you don’t toe the party line, said Uriel, a former high school teacher, “they turn you into an enemy of the state.”
Uriel, 36, said he never participated in any anti-government marches. But he worried that local party leaders had been watching him, that they knew how he spoke about democracy and free speech in the classroom.
Uriel bought a plastic barrel to send belongings, like a guitar he was given, to his wife and children in Nicaragua. (Benjamin Rasmussen for ProPublica)
(Benjamin Rasmussen for ProPublica)
He said he left Nicaragua almost four years ago both because of the political situation and because he knew he could make more money in the U.S. He has an ongoing asylum case, a work permit and a job at a bread factory. His wages have allowed him to buy a plot of land for his wife and two children, still in Nicaragua, and begin construction on a house there.
He’d hoped to stay in Wisconsin long enough to pay to finish it. But bracing for the inevitable, he’s got a barrel too. Soon, he plans to pack and send a used Yamaha guitar he was given as a gift a few years earlier. Uriel learned to play the instrument by watching YouTube videos and now plays Christian hymns that he said make him feel good inside.
This summer, he plans to return as well. His children have been growing up without him. He has been told his 6-year-old daughter points to planes in the sky and wonders whether her father is inside. He worries that his son, 11, will grow up believing he has been abandoned.
It has been hard to be separated from his children, he said. But he left in order to provide them a life he didn’t believe he could have if he had stayed — a reality he thought was missing from so much of the new president’s rhetoric on immigration. “We are not anybody’s enemy,” Uriel said. “We simply are looking for a way to make a living, to help our families.”
‘What we’re afraid of is getting picked up on the street and then not having a chance to send home all of the things that cost us so much.’
Joaquín plans to send his clothing to family in Nicaragua. He’s afraid it will end up in a landfill if he’s deported. (Benjamin Rasmussen for ProPublica)
(Benjamin Rasmussen for ProPublica)
A life in hiding
It used to be that on Sundays, his day off, Joaquín would pull on his favorite boots and sombrero to drive somewhere — to a restaurant or to visit family and friends who had settled in south-central Wisconsin. But ever since Trump’s election, he doesn’t leave his apartment unless he has to. Some days, he says, he feels like a mouse, scurrying downstairs to work and upstairs to sleep and back downstairs again to work, always alert and full of dread.
The gray 2016 Toyota 4Runner that he bought last year, his pride and joy, sits mostly unused behind his apartment building. He’s too afraid of driving and getting pulled over by police officers who, by randomly checking his vehicle’s plates, could discover he doesn’t have a driver’s license. Joaquín doesn’t have the documents he needs to qualify for one. He worries that drawing the attention of police, even for the smallest of infractions, could get him swept into the immigration detention system and deported. “What’s happening now is a persecution,” he said.
On a recent Sunday, his apartment was filled with the sweet, warm smell of home-baked goods. Joaquín said he spent two hours making traditional Nicaraguan cookies called rosquillas and hojaldras, one savory and the other sweet. We talked over coffee and the cornmeal cookies. Half of his living room floor was covered with piles of clothes and shoes, and one tall, empty box. There were shirts, pants and sneakers for each of his three children, who remain in Nicaragua. Most of the clothes belonged to Joaquín: a crisp pair of tan Lee jeans, rarely worn; several pairs of boots; a box of sombreros.
Joaquín said he plans to send all of it to relatives in Nicaragua in February. It pains him to imagine being trotted onto a deportation flight and leaving everything he owns here to get tossed in a landfill somewhere.
Another day, I spoke by phone with an immigrant named Luz, 26. Like Joaquín, she said she rarely leaves her apartment anymore. The week Trump was inaugurated, she stopped going to her job at a nearby cheese factory, afraid of workplace raids. She now stays home with their 1-year-old son. A woman she knows picks up the family’s groceries so they don’t have to risk being out on the street.
Like many of her friends and relatives, Luz came to the U.S. as an asylum-seeker almost three years ago. She missed an immigration court hearing while pregnant with her son and now worries she has “no legal status here.”
“Those of us who work milking cows, we can’t afford to hire a lawyer,” she said. “We don’t even know what’s happening with our cases.”
After Trump’s election, she began packing some of the things she’d accumulated in her time in Wisconsin, including some used children’s clothes she’d received from Meza, the community health worker. She packed most everything in her kitchen: most of her pots and pans, some plates and cups, knives, an iron and “even chocolates,” she said, almost laughing. “It is a big box.”
Luz said she wants all of her household items to be in Nicaragua when she returns with her family. They hope to leave in March. “I don’t want to live in hiding like this,” she said.
‘My biggest fear is that they deport me and take my son away.’
Isabel sent her 14-month-old son’s toys and stuffed animals in a cardboard box to Nicaragua. (Benjamin Rasmussen for ProPublica)
(Benjamin Rasmussen for ProPublica)
Family separation redux
Isabel’s son cried as she filled her box. In went the shiny red car, big enough for the 14-month-old to sit in and drive. It had been a gift from his godfather on his first birthday. She added other, smaller cars and planes and stuffed animals. A stroller. A framed photo from the birthday party, the chubby-cheeked boy surrounded by balloons.
The 26-year-old mother knew her son was too young to understand. But she hoped he would if the dreaded time came when they had to return to Nicaragua.
And to make sure she wouldn’t be separated from him, she applied for his passport early last fall, when she became convinced that Trump would win the election. She could see his lawn signs all around her in the rural community in the middle of the state where she lives. Her husband, who works on a dairy farm, told her he’d begun feeling uncomfortable with the way people glared at him at Walmart. Sometimes, they shouted things he didn’t understand, but in a tone that was unmistakably hostile.
Their son was born in the U.S. to noncitizen parents — exactly the kind of child Trump says does not deserve citizenship here. Isabel got his passport both to secure his rights as an American citizen and to secure her rights to him. She wants to make sure there is no mistaking who the boy belongs to if she gets sent away.
We met Isabel about a week after she’d shipped off the box with her son’s red toy car to her mother’s home in southern Nicaragua. It was the morning of Trump’s inauguration, and Isabel welcomed us into her apartment, her eyes still red and bleary from an overnight shift at a nearby cheese-processing factory.
She said they were ready to go “if things get ugly” and the people around her start getting picked up and sent back. But there was another box, still flat and unpacked, propped up against a wall in the living room. That one, she explained, belonged to a neighbor with the same game plan.
I ask her what happens if they don’t get deported, but their most precious belongings are gone. Won’t they miss those things? “Yes,” she said. But it would be even worse to go back to Nicaragua and have nothing.
Now with less than a week before Trump’s inauguration, members of Milwaukee’s immigrant community are bracing for the next four years.
“People are taking the (future) administration at their word,” said Alexandra Guevara, communications director for Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant advocacy organization in Milwaukee.
Guevara said her organization has been fielding phone calls from worried residents.
Here are answers to five key immigration-related questions.
Unauthorized immigrants include those who enter the U.S. illegally, overstay a visa or violate terms of admission.
It is unclear how stricter immigration policies will affect those with short-term protections, such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protective Status.
“But I think the writing is on the wall for those” protections, said Marc Christopher, managing attorney and owner of Christopher & De León Law Office, a law firm based in South Milwaukee that practices immigration law.
Trump’s first administration expanded the use of expedited removal, which allows deportation of an unauthorized individual without appearing before an immigration judge.
Many advocates worry that this expansion will happen again, making people who are unable to prove at least two years of continuous physical presence in the country eligible for expedited removal, said Cain Oulahan, attorney with Oulahan Immigration Law.
Because of the general confusion and shifting political landscape, Guevara worries that there will be an increased risk of racial profiling.
2. What can be expected from local enforcement?
ICE relies on local law enforcement to help carry out its duties, but the level of cooperation with ICE varies greatly depending on the area.
Milwaukee Police Department policy states it does not routinely inquire about immigration status during operations, emphasizing that most immigration violations are civil, not criminal.
However, Christopher thinks it is likely the Trump administration will begin to put more pressure on cities to comply with ICE.
The policy of the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department does not completely shut the door on cooperating with ICE in certain scenarios where someone is detained for committing a crime and is also suspected of being an unauthorized immigrant.
On a practical basis, though, the nature of the crime in this scenario is likely to make a difference, said Ruby De León, staff attorney at Voces.
“It doesn’t seem like day-to-day traffic stops – I don’t believe they would prioritize contacting ICE over these incidents.”
NNS reached out to ICE for comment about its priorities and plans for Milwaukee but did not receive a response.
3. What rights do people have?
Advocates stress that constitutional protections apply regardless of citizenship status, including the right to remain silent, the right to talk to a lawyer and protection from illegal search and seizure.
If law enforcement asks people to show immigration documentation, they have the right to remain silent or refuse to answer questions.
Law enforcement must have reasonable suspicion of unauthorized presence in the country to demand proof of immigration status, said R. Timothy Muth, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.
At the same time, if people are not citizens but have documentation that permits them to stay in the country – such as a green card – they are required to keep that documentation with them, Muth said.
If a person is approached at home, a warrant for deportation allows officers to enter a home only if it is signed by a judge.
“And you should ask to see it,” Muth said. “You ask them to slip it under the door or show it to you at your window. You have a right to see the warrant and look at the signature line.”
With potential immigration violations, people have the right to speak to an attorney. But unlike with criminal arrests, the government does not have to provide the lawyer, De León said.
Additionally, individuals with a legitimate fear of persecution or torture in their home country have a right to seek asylum or asylum-type protection, Oulahan said.
4. What should be avoided if approached by law enforcement?
Voces and the ACLU advise against signing documents without a lawyer, running away or lying.
Running away and lying can be separate criminal acts, Muth said.
If people suspect their rights are being violated, such as being unlawfully searched, then they should not physically intervene, Muth added. They should instead document what they can and clearly state that they do not consent.
Voces and the ACLU also suggest taking photos or videos of agents, noting names and badge numbers.
Advocates recommend ensuring documentation is current, applying for passports for U.S.-born children and pursuing citizenship or legal status if eligible, perhaps through an employer or family member.
A city of Milwaukee municipal ID can serve as a form of identification for city residents who cannot get state identification.
Muth recommends carrying documentation showing continuous presence in the country for more than two years, such as a lease agreement, pay stubs or utility bill in a person’s name.
Voces also suggests completing power-of-attorney forms to plan for potential family separation.
Fernanda Jimenez, a 24-year-old Racine resident, came to the United States from Mexico with her mother and siblings when she was just 5 years old. It’s the only home she can remember.
For almost a decade, Jimenez has been protected from deportation by the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, launched under the Obama administration. The program allows people who came to the country illegally as children to get work permits and continue living in America.
Earlier this year, Jimenez graduated from Alverno College in Milwaukee. She currently works as a grant writer, helping nonprofits apply for funding. But she’s also in the process of applying to law school.
“I like helping nonprofits get funding to do the work that we need in our country and especially our communities, but I’m more passionate about community organizing,” she said. “I’d like to eventually use legal skills after law school for community organizing.”
Jimenez has big dreams, but she says she’s been feeling a looming anxiety since former President Donald Trump won his bid to return to the White House in this year’s presidential race.
She was still in high school when Trump was first elected in 2016, but she says she still remembers feeling “terrified” about what his election would mean for her parents who don’t have permanent legal status and what it would mean for DACA’s future.
Those fears have come roaring back in recent weeks.
“Our community is terrified. They’re uncertain of their futures, they’re concerned for their family members who are undocumented and not protected under DACA,” Jimenez said. “A lot of naturalized citizens are concerned as well. The mass deportation threat is being taken seriously.”
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to lead the largest deportation effort in U.S. history. Shortly after the election, he announced that Tom Homan, former acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would serve as his administration’s “border czar.”
In interviews with Fox News last week, Homan said he would prioritize deporting people who threaten public safety or pose risks to national security. But he also told the network that anyone in the country illegally is “not off the table,” and the administration would perform workplace immigration raids.
Immigrant rights group plans organizing efforts
Following Trump’s reelection, Voces de La Frontera, a Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group, has been holding community meetings in Green Bay, Milwaukee and Dane County to plan next steps, according to Christine Neumann-Ortiz, the organization’s founding executive director.
She said many of the immigrants in Wisconsin without permanent legal status are fearful of the prospect of mass deportations, but she doesn’t believe they will leave the country preemptively. Rather, she said they may leave Wisconsin for states that provide more protections to immigrants.
Neumann-Ortiz said Voces is using the regional meetings to brainstorm ways it can organize around protecting immigrants without permanent legal status. She said the group plans to raise awareness through mass strikes, protests and civil disobedience.
“We really are going to have to very strongly be a movement that stands for human decency, solidarity, and we’re going to have to do that in the streets,” she said.
Neumann-Ortiz also said she believes most Trump voters cast ballots for him because of economic concerns, not because they wanted to see people forcibly removed from their communities.
“I do think as things unfold, there’s going to be shock waves that are going to happen that are going to have many people open their eyes, regret their decisions and see what they can do to help,” she said.
David Najera, Hispanic outreach coordinator for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, does not share the concerns about mass deportations.
“My parents came from Mexico and Texas. They came the right way, and that’s the way I’d like to see people come,” he said.
Najera said he supports Trump’s immigration policies, citing concerns about crime, infectious disease and government resources.
“The immigrants are just overwhelming the hospitals, schools and everything else, and taking our tax money,” Najera said. “I’m not saying they’re all bad, but there’s a majority of them that are just getting out of their jails over there in different countries, and coming here with bad intentions.”
How are Wisconsin immigration attorneys advising clients?
Marc Christopher, an immigration attorney based in Milwaukee, represents clients in federal immigration court who are facing deportation or seeking asylum. Christopher said he doesn’t expect the Trump administration’s deportation effort to be limited to people with serious criminal convictions or those who pose security concerns.
He said he expects increased targeting of individuals who haven’t committed crimes or have been charged with minor offenses, like driving without a license. Immigrants living in Wisconsin without proof of citizenship or legal residency can’t get driver’s licenses.
“What I’m telling my clients to do is make sure that you follow the law to a tee,” Christopher said. “If you do not have a driver’s license, do not drive. If you can have someone else drive you to work or drive your children to school, make sure and do that because that’s the most common way that they get thrown into the immigration court process.”
Aissa Olivarez, managing attorney for the Community Immigration Law Center in Madison, said she expects the incoming administration to expand the use of “expedited removal.” It’s a process that allows the government to deport people without presenting their case to an immigration judge if the person has been in the country for less than two years.
“I’m also advising people to start gathering proof that they’ve been here for more than two years — phone bills, light bills, leases, school information — to be able to show in case they are stopped and questioned by immigration authorities,” Olivarez said.
Attorney Aissa Olivarez of the Community Immigration Law Center leads a seminar on March 11, 2024, in Madison, Wis. The presentation included basic information about the rights of immigrants in the U.S. and how people can apply for asylum. (Angela Major / WPR)
Second Trump term reignites fears over DACA’s future, impact on mixed-status families
Christopher and Olivarez both said the DACA program, and other federal programs giving immigrants temporary protected statuses, could end in the coming years.
Trump previously tried to end the DACA program, but it was upheld in a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with four liberal justices. The current court has a 6-3 conservative majority, meaning Roberts would no longer be the deciding vote.
“It’s (DACA) all but assuredly going to be found unconstitutional by the current Supreme Court,” Christopher said of the DACA program.
Jimenez, the DACA recipient from Racine, said she’s afraid being a participant in the program will make her a target for deportation by the federal government.
“We have to provide, every two years, an updated information application of where we live, our biometrics, our pictures, and they have to be recent pictures,” she said. “They have our entire information. And that’s really where our fear is at. They know who we are. They know we’re undocumented.”
Immigrant rights advocates are also concerned that a mass deportation effort could devastate the estimated 28,000 families in Wisconsin with mixed-immigration status. Those families include households where one spouse may be a U.S. citizen married to someone who doesn’t have permanent legal status, or where the parents of U.S. citizen children lack legal status.
Jimenez said her brother is part of a mixed-status family. She says he is a DACA recipient, his girlfriend is a legal resident, and his children are U.S. citizens.
“If he is to be deported, his kids would suffer the most not having their father with them, and my parents, who I fear (for) the most, have no protection,” she said. “They have to work. They have to drive to work. They have to drive without a license.”
What could a second Trump term mean for asylum seekers in Wisconsin?
Christopher, the immigration attorney from Milwaukee, said individuals seeking asylum in Wisconsin are in the country legally as they wait to make their case to the government that they should be granted asylum in the United States.
Under the last Trump administration, Christopher said the federal government narrowed the qualifications to be granted asylum. He said the previous Trump administration made it so those fleeing cartel or gang violence in their home country did not qualify and rolled back protections for those fleeing gender-based violence.
If Trump tightens restrictions on the qualifications on asylum again, Christopher said those new restrictions would apply to people already in Wisconsin waiting to make their case to immigration officials.
“You’re not protected by the rules at the time that you apply,” he said. “It’s going to be a major shift.”
Byron Chavez, a 28-year-old asylum seeker from Nicaragua, has been living in Whitewater since 2022. He applied for asylum and is waiting to make his case to the government.
“The community is very friendly. … You got everything you need and everything is close,” he said. “The diversity you have here, it’s what makes Whitewater a really nice place.”
If he gets an asylum hearing after Trump takes office, Chavez says he’s hopeful the government will hear him out and grant him asylum.
“I’m a little bit more concerned because I think the immigration law will be stricter,” he said. “But other than that, I like to go by the book. I’m doing things the way they should, and hopefully that talks about my desire of being here. I want to do things the right way.”
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