As light snow fell outside, worshipers gathered at Chicago’s Lincoln United Methodist Church to pray and plan for what will happen when Donald Trump takes office next week, when the president-elect has promised to begin the largest deportation of immigrants in US history.
“20 [of January] it’ll be here before we know it,” the Rev. Tanya Lozano-Washington told the congregation, after passing out cups of hot Mexican chocolate and coffee to warm the crowd of about 60 people.
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 services in Spanish have been canceled.
The decision to move them online was made because of fears that these gatherings could be targeted by anti-immigration activists or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The new president has said he will deport millions of illegal immigrants, threatened workplace raids, and reports suggest he may end a longstanding policy that barred access to churches for ICE arrests.
According to one parishioner, American-born David Crusen, “the threat is very real. It’s very alive.”
Cruseno said his mother entered the country illegally from Mexico, but has been working and paying taxes in the U.S. for 30 years.
“With the new administration coming in, it’s almost like persecution,” he told the BBC. “I feel like we’re being singled out and targeted in a way that’s unfair, even though we’re working together [with] this land endlessly.”
But across the country, more than 1,400 miles (2,253 km) south in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, another largely immigrant community has a very different view of the upcoming inauguration — a sign of how sharply divided Latino communities have become over illegal immigration and Donald Trump’s rapprochement with the U.S. Mexican border.
“Immigration is necessary … but in the right way,” said resident David Porras – a rancher, farmer and botanist.
“But with Trump, we’re going to do it right.”
The region is separated from Mexico only by dark, shallow, narrow river waters and patches of dense vegetation and mesquite — locals say the daily reality of life on the border has increasingly opened their eyes to what many see as the dangers of illegal immigration.
“I had families [of migrants] knock on my back door, ask for water, shelter,” said Amanda Garcia, a resident of Starr County, where nearly 97% of residents identify as Latino, making it the most Hispanic county in the U.S. outside of Puerto Rico.
“We once had an incident where a young lady was alone with two men and it was obvious that she was tired – and that she was being abused.”
In more than a dozen interviews in the Rio Grande Valley’s two constituent counties — Starr and neighboring Hidalgo — residents described a variety of other border-related incidents, ranging from migrants waking up on their property to witnessing arrests of cartel warehouses used for drugs, or dangerous high-speed chases between authorities. and smugglers.
Many in the predominantly Hispanic part of Texas are immigrants themselves 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 district has been won by Republicans in more than 130 years.
Nationally, Trump won about 45% of the Latino vote — a whopping 14 percentage points compared to the 2020 election.
The victory in Starr County, locals say, was in no small part a result of Trump’s stance on the border.
“We live in a country of law and order,” said Demesio Guerrero, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Mexican descent who lives in the city of Hidalgo, across the international bridge from the cartel-hit Mexican city of Reynosa.
“We have to be able to [to say] who comes in and out,” added Mr. Guerrero, speaking in Spanish just meters from the brown, tall metal barrier that represents the end of the U.S. “Otherwise this country is lost.”
Like other Trump supporters in the Rio Grande Valley, Mr. Guerrero repeated – that he is “not against immigration”.
“But they should do it the right way,” he said. “As others have.”
Trump “is not at all anti-immigrant or racist,” agreed Marisa Garcia, a resident of Rio Grande City in Starr County.
“We’re just tired of them [undocumented immigrants] they come in and think they can do whatever they want on our property or land and take advantage of the system,” she added. “It’s not racist to say that things need to change and we should benefit from it as well.”
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 described by the ACLU of Texas as “mass caging” that will ” encourage violations of civil rights”.
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 for the area.
“If you look at it from a development perspective, it’s great for the economy of the city,” Rio Grande City Manager Gilberto Millan told the BBC.
“Obviously it has some negative connotations because it’s a detention area,” he said. “You can see it that way, but obviously you need a place to house those people.”
The number of migrants coming through Mexico is falling sharply – with last month’s crossing the lowest since January 2020.
But the problem is still present on the streets of cities like Chicago, far from the southern border.
It is one of several Democratic-governed cities that have passed so-called “sanctuary city” laws that limit local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
In response, starting in 2022, Republican governors in southern states like Texas and Florida sent thousands of immigrants north by bus and plane.
Tom Homan, Trump’s pick to lead border policy, told a Republican gathering in Chicago last month that the Midwestern 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 Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the state’s governor, JB Pritzker, have continued to support the city’s sanctuary laws, dubbed the “Welcoming City” here.
But the policy is not universally loved. In November, Trump achieved success in many Latin American districts.
Recently, two Hispanic Democratic lawmakers tried to change the ordinance to allow some cooperation by Chicago police with federal authorities. Their measure was blocked Wednesday by Johnson and his progressive allies.
For now, worshipers at Lincoln United Methodist are making plans and watching closely as Trump’s plans unfold.
“I’m afraid, but I can’t imagine how people feel without papers,” said D Camacho, a 21-year-old legal immigrant from Mexico who was among those gathered at the church on Sunday.
Mexican consular officials in Chicago and elsewhere in the US also said they were working on a mobile app that would allow Mexican migrants to alert relatives and consular officials if they were detained and could be deported.
Officials in Mexico have described the system as a “panic button.”
Organizers at Lincoln United also reach out to legal professionals, advising local residents on how to take care of their finances or arrange child care in the event of deportation, and help create ID cards with immigrant family member information and other information in English.
And several second-generation immigrants here said they are working to improve their Spanish, so they can convey legal information or translate for migrants being interviewed by authorities.
“If someone with five children is taken away, who will take the children? Will they go to social services? Will the family be divided?” said Reverend Emma Lozano – mother of Reverend Tanya Lozano-Washington and longtime community activist and church elder.
“Those are the questions people have,” she said. “‘How can we defend our families – what’s the plan?’
