
Every Sunday morning, Nelly Garcia slip into the bench in the Roman Catholic church of Saint. William in the north-eastern Philadelphia, meeting a close friend for Spanish-speaking service, but this week something was turned off.
Her friend did not appear.
She decided to be too risky, because it is undocumented, that ice agents may appear and deport it to Guatemala.
“She already told me:” If [ICE] He gets me, you are responsible for sending me things – said 49 Garcia.
In the first nine days of Trump’s administration, ICE’s reports were in the Philadelphia region, driving fear in immigrant communities and causing that some people change their routine and withdraw from everyday life.
On Tuesday, American enforcement of immigration and customs law attacked a car washer in Philadelphia, northern Philadelphia, arresting seven migrants and causing a protest of about 25 pastors, activists and city residents outside the office of the City of Agency. Ice Philadelphia officials said they could not provide any information about arrests.
On Wednesday, rumors about the upcoming raid of ice raids did not think of the notable Italian market in Philadelphia, closing companies and leaving free stalls.
For Jesus Mozo, who has been working in a market restaurant for decades, a sense of emptiness emerged after weeks of conversation that they “are coming”.
“At that moment I would prefer the ice to appear, instead of living in this way, in this unknown,” said Mozo, who is known and depended on the community. “We have to meet, make a march or something, because it will affect not only our economy, but also in the city. … we are also people and we cannot live at this level of fear. “
Elsewhere, some immigrants stayed away from supply stores, such as Home Depot, in which undocumented men looking for a job can accumulate in parking lots, hoping that the contractor would offer a day of remuneration, and others skipped stopping in Wawa, in case if Ice agents could observe.
Sometimes it was hard to say what was true, which was a rumor, which is normal ice activity and what was accelerated in a gigantic, democratic city of the sanctuary. The messages confirmed one earlier arrest in the city.
The widely widespread rumor that ice agents were at the Primary School of Julia de Burgos in northern Philadelphia, she was false, said the director in messages to families. And the report that ICE was parked outside the Presbyterian Medical Center turned out to be less provocative – according to the town hall employee, who conducted the study, the agency employee visited a unwell family member.
But the reports have shown the scope of an increased warning, especially now that President Donald Trump announced that schools, hospitals and churches are potential objectives of enforcement of immigration law.
Almost immediately after taking office on January 20, Trump opened the guidelines for “sensitive locations” of ice, which he generally forbade agents to take action in these places. This policy helped make zero philadelphia zero for the movement of the sanctuary, which saw over a dozen people living here in churches, knowing that ice could not enter.
On Sunday, the turnout remained nearly the norm in St. William in Lawncrest and at Mass in Vietnamese in St. Thomas Aquinas in southern Philadelphia.
The clergy there and elsewhere said that they maintain open telephone lines, and to St. Thomas Aquinas came a pointed boost in connections from worried worshipers, said Fr. Wilmer Chirino, pastor.
He undertook that ice agents would be detained at the door, prohibited by entrance, even if they carry a legal, judicial order. He said that the party was only because of the approval of a personal representative of the Pope in the United States.
“It’s like an embassy,” said Chirino. Ice agents “can do what they want outside of property, but not inside.”
The White House announced at the end of last week that “the largest massive deportation operation in history is already underway”, although “Border Car” Tom Homan told ABC News that the scope of removals – about 13 million undocumented people live in the United States – will be He lives in the United States – depends on the amount of financing assigned by the Congress.
On X, ICE officials published a photo of agents putting a man in handcuffs and a phone number so that people could report “suspicious activity”. At least one man was arrested earlier in Philadelphia as ICE I started operating in the cities of the Sanctuary Including Boston, Denver, Atlanta and Washington, New York Post.
“The performance is part of a mass deportation strategy,” said Immigration historian Carly Goodman, assistant professor at Rutgers University-Camden and author DREAMLAND: America’s Immigration Lottery in the Age of Limitations. “It helps to spread fear that can drive people out of public life and make them more sensitive, while fueling anti -immigrant propaganda.”
The 117,000 Philadelphia School School also faced the challenges as the ice enforcement spreads.
“We saw a turnout last week,” said one of the teachers who was not authorized to speak because of the district principles and works at school with a gigantic number of students in English.
Some teens confided that immigration fears cause them to limit their movements around Philadelphia. But the staff of the urban government policy excludes employees to ask about the immigration status of students, so school staff are hard to say who can struggle, unless students receive a vote.
“I just prefer children,” said the teacher. “They have real fears and have from the day after the election.”
Officially, the district confirmed his policy of “Sanctuary Schools” in 2021, repeating their commitment in protecting students and immigrants and families against the questions of the federal authorities.
Panic broke out last week in the Italian corridor on the ninth street – houses for Mexican and Latin companies – when the “American woman” entered the shops, shouting that Ice intends to attack this area at 16:00, according to many owners of companies there. The hour came and passed last Wednesday without incidents, but the employees were shocked.
“Some people are trying to help, but others try to threaten us, scare us,” said Isabel Espinosa, who lives legally in the United States after emigration from Mexico. “We must remember to put aside fear and make room for peace because there is no flowering panic.”
61 -year -old Espinosa runs a shop on the market that sells dresses for communion and quinceañeras, a time-honored celebration of the 15th birthday that means the transition of girls to adulthood. She said that business is leisurely from the inauguration reminding her experience during Trump’s first term, when it lacked a legal permit to be here.
“Rumors on the streets would say that Ice was on Ninth Street, and I was running outside to check and make sure I didn’t have to pack and go,” said Espinosa. “I’m a resident now, but I still see the same fear in my community.”
In fact, on Wednesday, she had to close her store after employees told her that they were afraid to come in, that they were warned about the approaching ice coating.
The recent Sanctuary movement in Philadelphia pressed the training “Get to know your rights” and said that the almost dozen of recent churches joined the base of 33 member congregations in just over a week. The Latin Juntos Group said that it will again launch the “community resistance zones” in which the inhabitants of southern Philadelphia work to facilitate the immigrants of neighbors. The group said that people can register to join the network to facilitate each other in the case of raids or illegal police actions.
Juntos continues his own training “Get to know your rights” and plans the seminar on February 11 for teachers in the sanctuary policy.
He also oster people that Trump has revived “accelerated removal”, a policy that allows the immediate deportation of undocumented people who have been in the United States for less than two years. Juntos calls those who have been here longer to always bear evidence, said executive director Erika Guadalupe Nñuz.
Trump has committed himself to an unprecedented campaign to deport millions of undocumented immigrants throughout the country, exposing the risk of about 47,000 people in Philadelphia, 153,000 in their entire condition and an additional 440,000 in New Jersey.
Most Americans want to remove them.
AND Last survey by Ipsos and New York Times It showed that 63% supports the removal of undocumented immigrants who have entered the country in the last four years, and 55% stated that they are conducive to the deportation of all who do not have legal consent to be here.
Experts say that mass deportation would require billions of dollars to radically expand the national enforcement and detention system of immigrants, and that what is now on site can never cope with the load. ICE employs approximately 20,000 staff in the United States and around the world – about half of the FBI number – and works according to the agency within a budget of $ 8 billion.
Last week, an undocumented Mexican man who spent decades in the United States went to work, saying that he was ready for any fate on the Italian market.
“We can’t stay at home with crossed hands,” said the man who gave his name as Armando. “We are here to work, no matter how we are afraid.”
He came to Philadelphia as a teenager, but after decades, submitting legal documents and raising three American children with his wife is barely closer to obtaining a eternal stay.
“I would like the president not to see that we are not all bad people,” said 34 -year -old Armando, pulling the sweatshirt strongly when he sorted fruit and vegetables cool. “We are not all thieves, we are not murderers. We are ordinary people who work the hardest to have a better life for our children. “
His children are teenagers, the youngest 13, and although it would be terribly separated, Armando said that he would not return to the USA if he was arrested and deported. He will not ask his wife and children to give up their American life and went with him.
“I will have to be alone,” he said, “And be their dad from afar.”
Employee writer Anna Orso contribution to this article.