Immigrants hide, fearing capture on ''any corner

No going to church, no going to the store. No doctor’s appointments for some, no school for others. No driving, period — not when a broken taillight could deliver the driver to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It is happening in the Central Valley of California, where unauthorized immigrants pick the fields for survival wages but are keeping their children home from school; on Staten Island, where fewer day laborers haunt street corners in search of work; in West Phoenix’s Isaac School District, where 13 Latino students have dropped out in the past two weeks; and in the horse country of northern New Jersey, where one of the many undocumented grooms who muck out the stables is thinking of moving back to Honduras.

If deportation has always been a threat on paper for the 11 million people living in the country illegally, it rarely imperiled those who did not commit serious crimes. But with the Trump administration intent on curbing illegal immigration — two memos outlining the federal government’s plans to accelerate deportations were released Tuesday, another step toward making good on one of President Donald Trump’s signature campaign pledges — that threat, for many people, has now begun to distort every movement.

It has driven one family from the local park where they used to play baseball in the evenings, and young men from a soccer field in Brooklyn where pickup games were once common.

It has kept Meli, 37, who arrived in Los Angeles from El Salvador more than 12 years ago, in a state of self-imposed house arrest, refusing to drive, fearing to leave her home, wondering how she will take her younger son, who is autistic, to doctor’s appointments.

“I don’t want to go to the store, to church — they are looking everywhere, and they know where to find us,” said Meli, who asked that her last name not be used out of fear of getting caught. “They could be waiting for us anywhere. Any corner, any block.”

It has washed ever-larger tides of immigrants in Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles and beyond to the doors of nonprofit advocacy and legal services groups, which report hearing the same questions: What should I do if I am stopped by an officer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE? How quickly can I apply for citizenship if I am already a legal permanent resident? How can I designate someone with legal status as my children’s guardian if I am deported?

“There’s a real fear that their kids will get put into the foster care system,” said Mary Clark, the executive director of Esperanza Immigrant Legal Services in Philadelphia. “People are asking us because they don’t know where to turn.”

The new policies call for speedier deportations and the hiring of 10,000 ICE agents and direct them to treat any offense, no matter how small, as grounds for deportation.