[Baltimore Sun] Maryland immigrant advocates share mixed reactions to Donald Trump’s victory
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The Baltimore-area Latino immigrant community experienced a range of emotions, advocates said, following Donald Trump’s presidential victory after campaigning on immigration crackdowns and stoking fears of a migrant crime wave.
CASA, a Maryland immigrant rights group, created plans for multiple outcomes of the election, executive director Gustavo Torres said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun, including educating people about their legal rights.
Torres spent Wednesday morning talking to dozens of immigrant workers at day laborer centers, including sites in Baltimore and Silver Spring.
“They feel very scared, of course, but at the same time hopeful, because they know we are going to keep fighting for dignity, for immigration reform,” Torres said.
Community advocates said while many immigrants living in the Baltimore area are scared of the consequences of Trump’s immigration policies, they are optimistic about their organizations’ ability to share accurate information and mobilize people to push for their rights. A few also expressed surprise about Trump’s support among Latino voters.
Although Maryland’s state and local governments are friendlier to immigrants than those in other parts of the county, Torres worries that Trump’s administration will demand that municipalities cooperate with immigration authorities or risk losing their federal funding.
Earlier this summer, the Baltimore Enforcement and Removal Operations field office of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement began pushing local governments to comply with ICE detainer requests, which ask that officials hold someone accused of being illegally in the country for up to 48 hours after their scheduled release.
“That is going to put a lot of pressure on cities and counties and different areas where people depend on the federal government,” Torres said.
Earlier this year, Montgomery and Baltimore counties bent to pressure and agreed to do their best to notify ICE officials “48 hours or more” before releasing someone who has a pending detainer request.
CASA has planned a meeting for 400 attendees on Saturday at its Baltimore office, both to ensure its members understand the consequences of the election and to understand why some of that community supported Trump.
“We want to evaluate what happened, how the economy impacted the message from the administration and honestly, how the Democratic Party didn’t deliver for them for immigration reform,” Torres said.
Some Baltimore immigrants immediately recalled the hostile climate for immigrants — and Latinos born in the U.S. — during Trump’s last presidential term.
Susana Barrios, vice president of Latino Racial Justice Circle, said she felt “tension” when grocery shopping at a Dundalk supermarket and heard strangers tell her then-1-year-old nephew and her own U.S.-born children to go back to their own countries.
Barrios said her niece, living in Florida, summed up the election result best: “I can’t believe so many people hate us.”
However, Barrios and others stressed that community organizations would continue their work and focus on providing immigrants with information about their rights. “
“We’re just going to continue our work because our work is local. Our work is the people in front of us. That’s what we’re going to do, all of us,” Barrios said.
“This is not the moment when we are going to be sitting and crying,” said Lucia Islas, president of Comite Latino de Baltimore, although she did shed some tears watching election results until 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Since July, Islas said she has heard from thousands of anxious organization members, of various degrees of legal status, about the upcoming election. On Wednesday, many shared their questions about the future in a massive WhatsApp group chat.
Chief among Islas’ priorities is countering false rumors that could sow unnecessary fear while helping people anticipate the policy changes that Trump has promised, among them mass deportations and ending birthright citizenship.
She wants to give people hope and the tools to successfully adapt to living in the United States.
“It’s not that people are going to love us, but that way people are going to accept us in this country,” Islas said. “We don’t just work, we don’t just have babies, we also know how to be respectful and how to be polite, we can learn the rules.”
Islas said she is urging new arrivals to learn English and assimilate to show those who have negative perceptions of immigrants that they can be “good citizens.”
“Like Donald Trump said, he wants to make America better. We can do that too,” Islas said.
Towson-based therapist Donna Marie Fallon Batkis, a licensed clinical social worker who supported the families of the men killed in the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse earlier this year, said her clients were fearful about what a Trump administration could mean for them.
“Most people are registering shock, but also there’s [a] real fear that they’re going to be targeted again,” Batkis said Wednesday. “Maryland is a relatively safer place to be, but not that safe.”
Some of her clients are children who recall ICE raids, she said, or being separated from their parents at the border. Others are concerned about Trump’s similarities to figures in their home countries who wielded power with a “cult of personality.”
“The fear is that this will just be the beginning of something more frightening,” Batkis said, especially for those who came to the U.S. seeking a country where the rule of law was strong.
Batkis compared those leaders to Trump, who was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York earlier this year.
“Here’s this person who kind of bucks the law,” she said. “He doesn’t respect the law.”
Have a news tip or question? Contact Deputy Managing Editor Jay Judge at jjudge@baltsun.com.
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