[Excerpt]
A child comes home after school in tears, asking his parents what it means to be undocumented. “Do I have documents?” he asks. They reassure him that he does. He was born in the United States.
During recess, he was playing soccer with his classmates. His team scored a goal and were celebrating when a classmate on the opposing team approached him. He told him that Donald Trump was going to come for him and his family at night to take them out of this country.
“The boy didn’t want to go back to school,” Ildefonso Magaña, a (Valley Interfaith Project leader and) union organizer for more than 20 years, told America in a Spanish-language interview. An anxious coworker shared the story with him a couple of months ago.
“From school children to their parents to the workers to housewives, the Arizona immigrant community is living in fear,” Mr. Magaña said....
“We could just be scratching the surface of what’s possible, given the size and the scope of what these detention centers can do,” Tim McManus, the supervising organizer for Valley Interfaith Project, told America. “Private prisons and others are making a lot of money daily with everybody that’s on a bed in one of these detention centers. So they’re opening more and more of them.”
Mr. McManus has helped organize “know your rights” workshops for immigrant communities at churches throughout the Southwest. After one event, a group of participants told him that knowing your rights would not be enough.
“This is not about being able to express your rights,” they told him. “We’re watching people get grabbed at Home Depot and thrown into vans. There’s not an opportunity to express your rights and have a civil back and forth that then allows you to go home.”
As a result of that conversation, Valley Interfaith Project leaders pivoted and began helping families prepare for the potential deportation of a family member. Families should have their assets in order and have a plan for their children, Mr. McManus said, and undocumented immigrants should apply for legal status if they have an avenue to do so....
“I know there’s fear,” said (Valley Interfaith Project leader) Robert Fambrini, S.J., the pastor of St. Francis Xavier, noting that despite widespread concern, attendance at Spanish-language Masses has not diminished. “Perhaps the church is a space where they feel comfortable, where they feel community.”
Mr. Magaña is one of Father Fambrini’s parishioners. He immigrated to the United States from Mexico in the 1990s, after the North American Free Trade Agreement gutted the economy in his home state of Michoacan, he said. Mr. Magaña became a U.S. citizen in 1997.
“We can all do something,” he said. “If I’m in a vulnerable situation, I should learn more about how I can protect myself and my family. If I’m not vulnerable, I have to understand that what happens to my community happens to me.”
[Photo credit: OSV News/Bob Roller (via America: The Jesuit Review)]
The ICE Surge in Minnesota is Winding Down. Is Arizona Next?, America The Jesuit Review [pdf]