Indian families in Chicago, are scared that they may be detained by the immigration officials as part of a massive deportation drive that is underway after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to broaden the scope for enforcement.
In the West Ridge neighborhood, South Asian and Arab families with green cards are shaken by Trump’s immigration order banning travel into the United States from seven largely Muslim countries. When rumors began this weekend that federal agents are visiting Devon Avenue businesses to inquire into the peoples’ immigration statuses, some residents thought it is best to lie low.
Indian Americans to fight against racial intolerance
Indians are avoiding unnecessary trips and they made it sure to carry their immigration documents to prove that they are authorized to live in the country.
“One family, they told me they heard someone ring their doorbell at 9 p.m. at night. It could have been anyone but maybe it was DHS. They held their blankets in their beds and waited,” said Shabbir Patel, a community leader at the local mosque, Jamia Masjid. “Every time the doorbell rings, they get scared,” he said.
A shop owner on Devon asking to remain anonymous had said that the rumors of arrests and inquiries in the area have affected local businesses.“We’ve gone days without a sale in our store. People aren’t walking on the streets. They come in for necessities, maybe just stop by. But I don’t even see the foot traffic … they feel almost targeted,” the shop owner said.
Patel attended a meeting of local community leaders on Friday where residents had vocalized their concern that, should they be netted by federal agents, they wouldn’t be able to contact their family members for help, he said.
Indian American lawmakers to help detainees to have access to legal counsel
Patel works at a refugee assistance program at Makki Masjid, a mosque in Albany Park. The program has helped to settle refugees from Burma, Syria and Iraq and assisting them financially and with practical advice for living in Chicago.
“They’ve been calling these last three weeks in panic,” Patel said, referring to Trump’s travel ban. “‘Are we gonna get our green cards taken away?’ they ask. ‘Are we allowed to walk on the streets? Look for jobs? Go grocery shopping?’”“Everything is up in the air,” he said. “Every day we pray for each other — especially people who are already here through the right process.”
“The fear coursing through immigrant homes and the native-born Americans who love immigrants as friends and family is palpable,” Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, said in a statement. “Reports of raids in immigrant communities are a grave concern.”
“It sounds as if the majority are people who would have been priorities under Obama as well,” Michael Kagan, a professor of immigration law at the University of Nevada at Las Vegassaid. “But the others may indicate the first edge of a new wave of arrests and deportations.”
By Premji
