President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to deport immigrants regardless of status en masse once he takes office, revoke immigration statuses, and reverse policies of the Biden administration.
Many local advocacy groups are taking lessons learned from Trump’s first term to prepare for what could be coming. They’re taking practical steps, like securing housing for as many of the thousands of migrants as possible, as well as distributing information on immigrants’ rights.
“As a movement, we’re always — at the last minute — thinking about: ‘What are we going to do?’” said Patricia Montes, executive director of the immigrant rights group Centro Presente.
But, in the next month and a half, they’re thinking ahead to protect immigrants and refugees who are already here.
How to prepare
The challenge is that local advocacy groups aren’t sure what to expect. For many, the focus is on education at the household level.
“Nothing is off the table,” said Laura Rotolo field director for the ACLU of Massachusetts. “We’re worried about people who currently have status losing that status, people who currently have work authorization losing that work authorization and suddenly being subject to deportation.”
The ACLU of Massachusetts has a family-preparedness kit built under the first Trump administration for immigrant families, explicitly telling them what needs to happen if someone in their family is subject to deportation, or if a federal immigration agent knocks on the door.
There are more than just legal preparations to be made.
“Make sure that the children have a place to go, somebody who’s going to pick them up after school, that your banking records are safe, that your passport’s somewhere where you know where it is,” Rotolo said.
Montes is unsure if the new administration will have capacity for sudden mass deportation, but it’s still stirring up fear.
“The anti-immigrant rhetoric is stronger right now,” she said. “A lot of people are coming to our doors because they are afraid.”
Centro Presente has long held “know-your-rights” trainings for immigrants with different legal statuses, but they’ve ramped them up in the last month.
Boston Immigrant Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN) believes that some immigrants are more at risk. Those include people who have been in or are currently in immigrant detention; are out on bond but have to go to court for non-immigration cases; are surveilled through electronic ankle bracelets or watches; as well as their family members and close contacts.
“Those are people that Trump will be able to target more easily,” said Elizabeth Nguyen, a volunteer with BIJAN. “Folks are really focused on, ‘OK, we know that we don’t have to open the door unless there’s a judicial warrant, but what does that really mean?’”
Potential refugee cuts and switching statuses
Refugee agencies are also concerned that the Trump administration will target the nation’s refugees that come through an arduous process, often taking years. Trump significantly cut funding to refugee agencies nationwide during his first administration.
The International Institute of New England has been asked by its national office to resettle “as many refugees as we can before January 20,” said Jeffrey Thielman, the regional organization’s executive director.
That means working through weekends and the holidays to assist refugees at airports and coordinating housing.
The group also helps migrants, a separate group from refugees.
“We’re focusing mostly on our humanitarian parolee clients to get them temporary protected status,” Thielman said. “We feel that’s like a pathway to keep people here.”
Humanitarian parolees make up the majority of immigrant families currently in emergency shelter, living under a protected government status that lasts for two years. Receiving that status involves surrendering at the border and undergoing a background check. Trump administration advisors have said this will be reversed, and they don’t consider it legal.
The other immigration status — temporary protected status — protects people from specific countries like Haiti from deportation, unless they commit a crime. The status has far less benefits than humanitarian parole but could protect people from deportation longer, as that government-issued protection lasts until February 2026. Thielman said groups are pushing the Biden administration to extend that date further before Trump’s inauguration.
Advocates who are looking to get more humanitarian parolees temporary protected status hope it could buy more time for the mostly Haitian migrants coming to Massachusetts.
