(Trinidad Guardian) Trinidadians living in the United States are being forced to adjust their travel plans as their potent anxiety reached fever pitch in the wake of an announcement on Thursday by US President Donald Trump to roll out new immigration measures tailored to a federal court decision that blocked his initial travel ban.
A 60-year-old woman from Petit Valley, who asked not to be named, lived in the US for over a decade and was now in the process of trying to obtain her green card. “I don’t know what to expect now,” the fearful woman said. The lawyer responsible for handling her paperwork advised her to not even think about travelling outside the United States. “The lawyer who I’ve been dealing with said if I know anybody from Trinidad in my situation, tell them not to travel anywhere because you might not be able to get back into the US. I sincerely feel everyone should be scared because you just don’t know what could happen coming in,” she told the Sunday Guardian in a telephone interview.
Hundreds of Trinidadians normally flock to T&T for the Carnival season. Even those with plans for the Easter have been making adjustments to their travel plans.
She added, “Even though the courts blocked his ban the first time, he (Trump) is going to come with something else.” In response to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) national raid on undocumented immigrants that saw more than 683 being detained in the past week, the woman lamented that mainly black and Latino people seemed caught up in the sweep–a notion that 28-year-old Naisha Solomon of Arima agreed with.
Solomon, who has US citizenship and now resides in NYC, said her family’s plans of all living in the same country was now in jeopardy. Her mother, she revealed, had plans of moving to the US but was now reconsidering.
“My mom understands that ‘immigrant’ has a lot more to do with culture and race than documentation or legality for Trump. She had plans of migrating, but is concerned that those plans will be thwarted.”
Jacky Williams, 62, from San Juan and now a US citizen, spent her week comforting her friends about the situation. One friend in particular, she said, was deeply distressed because her green card was about to expire and she did not know what to expect when she went to renew it. “People are worrying about re-entry…even with citizenship! I don’t even know if Trump can revoke citizenship.” She added, “Trump is targeting coloured communities and they are coming after the West Indian community. A lot of people who were planning to go home for Carnival didn’t go.”
Undocumented Trini students vulnerable
Even some US colleges have been placed on high alert. Two school officials from two major NYC colleges, who spoke with the Sunday Guardian on the condition that their names and schools not be used, both confirmed that they were called into emergency meetings to come up with a plan to deal with ICE agents coming to their campuses. One of the officials said that while she was not authorised to divulge the number of T&T nationals or even how many undocumented students attended the school, the college started providing more resources to protect their students.
Chancellor of the City University of New York, James B Milliken issued a statement earlier this month reaffirming CUNY’s support for its students. “CUNY will take no action to assist in the enforcement of the immigration laws except as required by law,” the Chancellor said.
Undocumented Trinidadians would also not necessarily be protected under former president Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme. DACA prevented certain immigrants–known as Dreamers–who came to the US without documents as children, from being deported. But those protections have been called into question after ICE officials detained a 23-year-old Mexican born man who lived in the US since he was seven years old and protected under DACA.
Since 2012, among all African and Caribbean countries, only T&T, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Nigeria have ever made the top 25 list for DACA applications. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services accepted a total of 11,844 initial applications from these four countries, according to data in the Black Alliance for Just Immigration’s (BAJI) State of Black Immigrants statistical report.
Meetings teaching immigrants about their rights
Advocacy groups in the US clamoured this week to find ways to resist ICE’s crackdown and warned that the Caribbean community should take the recent actions by ICE very seriously. Some 41 people were arrested in NYC by ICE in the last week, two T&T nationals among them.
New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) spokesman, Thanu Yakupitiyage said the organisation–which boasts nearly 200 member organisations–was currently in the process of trying to get undocumented immigrants to meet with lawyers in advance to consider their options. “Recent ICE enforcement activities has a very serious impact on Caribbean communities because they are targeting people who may be undocumented or have some form of criminal conviction,” Yakupitiyage said.
But the ICE raids were not limited to just immigrants with criminal convictions in the past days and under current law, according to Bill Stock, president of American Immigration Lawyers Association, ICE was able to detain any undocumented person they came across in the course of their investigation, regardless of whether or not they are suspected of criminal activity, it was reported in the US media.
BAJI’s programmes manager, Carl Lipscombe, said while he could not independently verify reports of sweeps and checkpoints by ICE, BAJI got a number of phone calls reporting them. “So we are inclined to believe there was a presence even if there were no arrests,” he said. ICE has since issued a statement saying their actions were targeted enforcement of wanted criminals and not random stops on the street.
Lipscombe added, “It sounds like there is a unique focus on different groups but in reality the focus is on certain immigrants and black immigrants are more likely to be arrested by ICE.” He added, “I think there is a legitimate cause for concern. We don’t want to create massive panic in the West Indian community, but there is a reason to be concerned.”
BAJI was actively mobilising members to go out and raise awareness by setting up training sessions and organizing town hall meetings so that immigrants could know their rights, Lipscombe said.
