Immigrant Communities in Hiding: ‘People Think ICE Is Everywhere’

Schools, churches and shops are feeling the chilling effect of the fear of deportation. One minister said fewer congregants were showing up for services.

At a barbershop in Los Angeles, only one of the 10 chairs was occupied on what would ordinarily be a busy evening. In San Francisco, a middle school student’s erroneous information about seeing an immigration officer on a city bus prompted the school district to send parents a warning.

In Chicago, a mistaken report that immigration agents showed up at a school set off panic that rippled across the country. At a church in Charlotte, N.C., more than a third of the usual congregants were absent from a recent evening service.

Hotlines set up by advocates for immigrants to report enforcement activity have experienced a spike in calls.

“The hysteria is out of control,” said Patrick Garcia, executive director of Embrace All Latino Voices, a group in Charlotte, N.C.

After taking office last week, the Trump administration began highlighting what it has characterized as a new and more aggressive effort to target illegal immigration and deliver on a key campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations. So far, the enforcement efforts have been primarily individual arrests, rather than sweeps of factories, farms or other large-scale sites. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reported on social media more than 5,000 arrests in around a week’s time.

An estimated 14 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, according to demographers and other experts. The number includes people with no legal status as well as people who have some form of temporary status that is being contested in court or has been threatened with termination by the Trump administration.