In the vital heart of the Oklahoma City food truck industry, Gerardo Beltran, a transplant by way of Oregon, originating from Mexico, reviews his current business earnings with a disheartened countenance. In no uncertain terms, Beltran signals his dissatisfaction due to his profits experiencing a significant dip. ‘Foot traffic has reduced significantly; people are developing an unnatural fear of stepping out,’ he laments. This phenomenon coincided precisely with the entirety of the fortnight leading up to the inauguration of former President Donald Trump.
Trump, in his tenure, was swift to address concerns of unregulated immigration through an extensive network of raids spanning across the nation. These raids were aimed at curtailing automatic citizenship for offspring of noncitizens, a rule temporarily obstructed by a district judge. In retrospect, one might term this move as an overbearing overreach, exhibiting a lack of empathy and creating an atmosphere of fear among the population it targeted.
Oklahoma, though largely spared the large-scale immigration dragnets seen in metropolises such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, was not exempt from the rising apprehension. Reports suggest the immigrants feared becoming unintended casualties of these immigration raids. A terrifying prospect indeed, wherein otherwise law-abiding immigrants, who have been residing undocumented in the U.S. for decades, could find themselves ensnared in a crackdown aimed at wrongdoers.
This distress only echoed louder on a certain Tuesday within the Hispanic community in Oklahoma City. Actions of educational authority figures drew hundreds of members from the Latino community and their supporters to come together near the state Capitol. In a unanimous decision, the state’s education board had endorsed a policy mandating schools to disclose the count of undocumented students.
While this decision might be conceived in some corners as a step towards transparency, a multitude of protesters viewed otherwise. Ignoring the whispers of dissent, Walters, the Superintendent, and Gov. Kevin Stitt, pushed through the provisions, aiming to broaden their scope on the immigrant demography within local schooling systems. The potential consequences for these undocumented students remained bleakly uncertain.
Under Trump’s leadership, Homeland Security discarded its former restraint that had discouraged immigration enforcement at ‘sensitive locations’. This decision threw the sanctity of these protective spaces into question. Churches and schools feared potential immigration onslaughts, justifying the universally acknowledged humanity these facilities traditionally offer.
These evolving stances led the communities into an ever-increasing fear. The thought of churches teeming with people on Sunday morning being raided; it’s an unsettling image. In fact, this percolating fear led to anxious speculation within congregations about how to handle a possible confrontation with federal agents targeting a specific individual in their midst.
Servicemembers of the community were swift to express reassurances. They clarified that no alteration in policy had occurred under the Trump administration. Oklahoma County officials mirrored Knight, a local Police Master Sergent, in confirming they hadn’t seen any significant changes in their mandates. Still, the immigrant community struggled to reconcile the difference between public statements and their perceived reality.
Being a Mexican native who migrated to the U.S. in 1978, and earned citizenship in 1995, Mejia found himself at odds with conflicting aspects of his faith. He expressed a strong desire to uphold the Bible’s teachings about the submission to the laws of the land, but at the same time empathized with acquaintances who had yet to gain legal status. In the end, he pledged to do his utmost to provide what help he could offer.
Compared to the Trump era, prior administrations were noted for their overall drop in deportations. This decrease was due in part to the institution of ‘sanctuary city’ policies which restrained local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration agents. However, as pointed out by Ana Pottratz Acosta, a law professor specializing in immigration cases, the difference was not just policy-oriented, it was also a matter of discretion.
In Obama and Biden’s term, considerable flexibility was given to consider each person’s unique situation in the removal cases. In fact, a ‘humanitarian parole’ authority was used to create legal avenues for people seeking asylum. However, it seems this leniency didn’t sit well with all, as some might point out it could potentially encourage illegal immigration.
A further demarcation pointed out by Acosta between these administrations was the influence of their rhetoric on immigrant communities. Many have voiced concerns that Trump’s approach perpetuated unease and distress in these communities. Yet, it’s worth noting that within the population who bore the brunt of these policies, there was no monolithic sentiment.
Interestingly, in a twist of irony, Trump’s stringent measures found ample support within the immigrant community itself. A prominent figure voicing this contradiction was Rev. Mejia himself. Mejia observed that many of those affected by Trump’s tough-on-immigration stance were indeed hardworking, long-term residents, contributing significantly to the economy.
At times, taking these narratives at face value might make it easy to forget the complex tapestry of views in immigrant communities. Nonetheless, it’s an essential reminder that the conversation surrounding immigration extends beyond simple demonization or deification of one policy framework or another. It’s about people whose lives are impacted by these policy shifts, and navigating the dialogues requires the acknowledgment of this complexity.