When Wilmer Lucio boards the bus to work in New Jersey, he stays quiet during the 30 minute ride. The 55-year-old asylum seeker from Ecuador avoids speaking Spanish in public, hoping to remain under the radar from immigration officers.
“We hear about more ICE raids and that things are getting worse,” he told Documented in Spanish. When he finds himself in a situation where he needs to ask for assistance or otherwise speak in public, he said he tries to speak in English.
Following Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision which allows ICE to continue “roving” immigration patrols in Los Angeles based on physical appearance, language or other reasonable suspicions that someone is an “illegal alien in the United States,” Lucio said the risk of more Latino people being stopped and detained has increased nationwide.
“The most serious thing [about this decision] is the uncertainty,” he said, adding that he’s heard stories of migrants who have legal documentation even been arrested. “We don’t know what they will assume. It’s like playing the lottery — we don’t know when we’ll get hit by the Powerball,” he said.
In a 6-3 ruling on Sept. 8, SCOTUS reversed an injunction from a lower court that prohibited ICE agents in LA from conducting immigration stops based on apparent race or ethnicity; speaking Spanish or accented English; presence in a particular location, or the type of their work. The decision lifted a temporary restraining order (TRO) imposed by a federal district court in Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem.
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor not only warned of the administration’s misuse of the emergency docket, but also added: “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.”
Also Read: From L.A. to NYC: Immigrant Communities Brace After Supreme Court Rulings.
Human rights and immigration advocates say the decision sets a dangerous precedent that allows ICE to racially profile Latinos across the country, in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. Latino immigrants who spoke with Documented said the decision confirms that the Trump administration is discriminating against the Latino community and further increases their uncertainty of living in the country.
Lucio, who migrated to the U.S. from Ecuador 18 months ago and works at an auto shop in New Jersey, said the court’s decision helps President Trump’s agenda to detain as many people as possible. “It’s a business. They are paying the detention centers for detaining people. With more people detained, it’s better for business,” he said, adding that he has been paying close attention to the ICE raids in factories and at farms across the country.
Paz, an immigrant living in Jamaica, Queens, who requested that Documented use only his last name due to fear of retaliation, observed how mass deportation efforts by the administration appear to only target people of color. “You do not see them targeting white people,” he said in Spanish, adding that ICE’s new inflated budget gives the agency more freedom to detain more people than ever, especially in counties that are conservative, like Long Island.
Even though he already has his work permit and a social security number, which he obtained through a U visa petition, Paz, who migrated to the U.S. from Honduras 17 years ago, said he still does not feel safe while Trump is in office. “When I got home from work yesterday, ICE was near where I live. I had forgotten my phone in the car and was about to get it but when I saw them, I asked myself: ‘What am I doing [outside]’? So I went back home right away,” he said.
The 42-year-old construction worker explained that his wife and children often turn off the lights, the T.V., to shelter in place (in their house) whenever they hear that ICE enforcement is on the streets of Jamaica, Queens, where they live.
Nadia Marin-Molina, co-Executive Co-Executive Director at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), told Documented that the decision green lights the administration to continue to pursue their campaign of intimidation.
“It is a terrible decision. It seems to give the administration the pass to conduct racial profiling and assault people on the street,” Marin-Molina said, explaining that the impact of the decision goes beyond the targeting of immigrants and Latinos in the U.S. “They are undermining everybody’s Fourth Amendment rights,” Marin-Molina said, adding that U.S. citizens have already been arrested in multiple parts of the country.
Also Read: ICE Detention Surge Leaves New York’s Immigrant Communities on Edge.
Further, in response to Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion which directed immigration agents to promptly let an individual go if they “learn that the individual they stopped is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Marin-Molina said that no person should have to go through the terrible conditions, abuse, and the process to be released from detention.
Across the nation, other groups also condemned the decision by the Supreme Court. The Hispanic National Bar Association’ President Rosevelie Márquez Morales stressed that race, language, workplace, or location should never make someone a suspect, calling the ruling a threat to civil liberties for all.
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, also agreed that the ruling threatened the civil liberties of communities of color. “All Black and Brown families now face unwarranted harassment from ICE agents on the street–whether in California or New York. Every family in these communities is living with heightened fear, uncertain if their loved ones will return home safely or get through the day, for simply existing,” he said in a statement.
Regarding the impact that this will have in immigrant communities, like the more than 10,000 day-laborers in New York City that NDLON advocates for, Marin-Molina said that this decision will further push people to go into hiding and isolation. “It’s been a clear goal of the administration to… scare people in order to convince them to leave the county. They have spent hundreds of millions of dollars. They had a Homeland Security [ad] campaign on television to send this message — and now the court is supporting that.”
Marin-Molina added that she encourages more people to come forward and support the immigrant community, even organizations that may not focus on immigrant and human rights.
In the meantime, Paz said the increase in immigration enforcement has made it more difficult to live in the United States, even as he approaches the milestone of having lived here for two decades. His daughters struggle to understand the fearful limbo that is their daily reality, often questioning why they must turn off the lights or why they need to keep quiet.
“The nine-year-old sometimes cries and asks why they’re [the administration] doing this, that all children should be with their parents. They ask: ‘Why are they sending people to another country if they are not doing anything wrong?’” Paz said, adding: “We just pray to God that we survive this administration or that God touches his heart and he changes his mind and does something for the immigrant community.”
