From the snowy cities to the Mexican border

As light snow fell outside, worshipers gathered at Chicago’s Lincoln United Methodist Church to pray and plan for what will happen when Donald Trump takes office next week, as the president-elect promises to begin the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants in US history.

“January 20 will be here before we know it,” the Reverend Tanya Lozano-Washington told the congregation after handing out steaming cups of Mexican hot chocolate and coffee to warm the crowd of about 60 people.

Located in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Pilsen, the church has long been a hub for pro-immigration activists in the city’s large Hispanic community. But Sunday services are now only in English, as in-person Spanish services were canceled.

The decision to move online was made out of fear that such meetings could be targeted by anti-immigration activists or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The incoming president has threatened to deport millions of illegal immigrants, reports say. eliminate the church’s long-standing policy of placing no limits on ICE arrests.

According to David Cruseno, an American-born parishioner, “the threat is very real. It is very much alive.”

Cruseno said his mother entered the country illegally from Mexico, but has been working and paying taxes in the U.S. for 30 years.

“With the new administration coming in, it’s almost like a bully,” he told the BBC. “I feel like we’re being singled out and targeted in an unfair way, even though we’re constantly cooperating with this country.”

But across the country, more than 1,400 miles (2,253 km) south in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, a largely immigrant community has a very different view of the upcoming inauguration — a sign that Latino communities are deeply divided over illegal immigration and the Donald. Trump’s approach to the US-Mexico border.

“Immigration is essential… but the right way,” said resident David Porras – rancher, farmer and botanist.

“But with Trump, we’re going to do it right.”

The region is separated from Mexico only by the river’s dark, shallow, narrow waters and patches of dense mesquite vegetation – locals say the daily reality of living on the border has increasingly opened their eyes to what many see. like the dangers of illegal immigration.

“(Migrant) families have come knocking on my door, asking for water and shelter,” said Amanda Garcia, a resident of Starr County, where nearly 97 percent of residents identify as Latino, making it the most Latino county. In the US outside of Puerto Rico.

“Once, we had an incident where a young lady was on her own with two men, and it was obvious that she was tired and being abused.”

In more than a dozen interviews in two Rio Grande Valley counties — Starr and neighboring Hidalgo — residents described other border-related incidents, from waking migrants on their property to busts of cartel hideouts used to make drugs. or dangerous high-speed chases between authorities and smugglers.

Many in the Latino parts of Texas are immigrants, or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Once a reliable Democratic stronghold in “Red” Texas, Starr County went Trump in the 2024 election – the first time Republicans won the county in more than 130 years.

Nationally, Trump won about 45% of the Latino vote — a whopping 14 percentage point increase from the 2020 election.

The victory in Starr County, locals say, was due to Trump’s stance on the border.

“We live in a country of law and order,” said Demesio Guerrero, a naturalized US citizen from Mexico who lives in the town of Hidalgo, across the international bridge from the cartel-hit Mexican city of Reynosa.

“We have to be able to (tell) who’s going in and who’s going out,” Guerrero added, speaking in Spanish just meters from a tall, brown metal fence marking the end of the US. “Otherwise, this country is lost.”

Like other Trump supporters in the Rio Grande Valley, Guerrero said, repeatedly, that he is “not against immigration.”

“But they should do it in the right way,” he said. “As others have done.”

Trump “is not anti-immigrant, nor is he a racist,” agreed Marisa Garcia, a resident of Rio Grande, Starr County.

“We’re tired of (undocumented immigrants) thinking they can do whatever they want on our property or land and come and take advantage of the system,” he added. “It’s not racist to say that things need to change, and we need to benefit from it too.”

Support for deportations is so strong that the Texas state government offered Donald Trump 1,400 acres (567 hectares) of land outside Rio Grande City to build a detention facility for undocumented migrants – a move the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas described as controversial. “As a ‘mass cage’ that will encourage civil rights violations.”

Although the parcel of land – nestled between a peaceful farm-to-market road and the Rio Grande – is currently quiet, town officials believe it could ultimately be a boon to the area.

“From a development point of view, it’s very good for the city’s economy,” Rio Grande city manager Gilberto Millan told the BBC.

“There are obviously some negative connotations to being a detention area,” he said. “You can see it that way, but obviously you need a place to accommodate these people.”

The number of migrants entering from Mexico has been on a downward trend – last month’s crossings were the lowest since January 2020.

But the issue is still alive and well on the streets of cities like Chicago, far from the southern border.

It is one of several Democratic-led cities that have enacted so-called “sanctuary city” laws that limit local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

In response, since 2022, Republican governors in southern states like Texas and Florida have sent thousands of immigrants north on buses and planes.

Tom Homan, Trump’s pick to lead border policy, told a Republican rally in Chicago last month that the Midwestern city would be “ground zero” for mass deportations.

“On January 21st, you’re going to be looking for a lot of ICE agents in your city looking for criminals and gang members,” Homan said. “Count it. It will happen.”

Many local politicians, including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and state Governor JB Pritzker, have continued to support sanctuary city laws, here called “Welcome Cities.”

But politics is not universally loved. In November, Trump won in many Latino districts.

Recently, two Democratic Hispanic lawmakers tried to change the ordinance and allow Chicago police to cooperate in some way with federal authorities. Their measure was blocked Wednesday by Johnson and his progressive allies.

For now, worshipers at Lincoln United Methodist are making plans and watching carefully as they see how Trump’s plans play out.

“I’m scared, but I can’t imagine what undocumented people feel,” said D Camacho, a 21-year-old legal immigrant from Mexico who was a member of the congregation at the church on Sunday.

Officials at Mexican consulates in Chicago and elsewhere in the US also said they are working on a mobile app that would allow Mexican migrants to alert relatives and consular officials if they are being detained and could be deported.

Mexican officials have described the system as a “panic button.”

Lincoln United organizers are also reaching out to legal experts to help locals learn how to manage their finances or arrange childcare in the event of removal, and to create identification cards with an immigrant’s family members’ details and other information in English.

And several second-generation immigrants here said they were working to improve their Spanish so they could convey or translate legal information to migrants interviewed by authorities.

“If they take someone with five children, who will take the children? Will they go to social services? Will the family be split up?”. said Reverend Emma Lozano – Reverend Tanya Lozano-Washington’s mother and a longtime community activist and church elder.

“Those are the questions people are asking,” he said. “‘How can we defend our families, what’s the plan?’