On a recent Saturday, Dani Salazar was at La Tiendita, a free store at Coppin Community Center near Washington Park on the South Side. Instead of helping people get clothes and basic necessities like usual, he’s facilitating a Know Your Rights training for a small group of immigrants from Venezuela and Nicaragua.
He answers questions about the risks of deportation and what he calls collateral damage: when Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents arrive to arrest one person and end up taking more.
Salazar and other advocates have kicked off these workshops all over the city and suburbs in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to execute mass deportations when he takes office. With only a few days before his inauguration, local groups and organizations are also putting together emergency response plans.
In the basement of the community center, a man from Venezuela asks in Spanish a question on the minds of many: “In case we get deported, are [the kids] deported with us?”
Next to him is his 9-year-old daughter and his partner, holding their 3-month-old child. WBEZ is not using immigrants’ names in this story to protect their identity.
They look straight up at Salazar, waiting for a response.
He tells them these questions are why everyone needs to come up with a custody plan that includes finding a friend or relative who is willing to take care of their kids, putting that plan in writing and notifying their kids’ schools of this plan. Salazar says they also should try to get their kids passports. The parents in the room stare at him quietly, then look down at the handouts he’s given them.
During Trump’s first administration, his “zero tolerance” policy separated over 5,000 children from parents who crossed the border, with no tracking records. Trump has said this time around, he wants to get more aggressive with immigrants who are in the country without legal status. He said he’ll start deporting criminals first and individuals with deportation orders.
Last month at a banquet hall on Chicago’s Northwest Side, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan said Chicago will be “ground zero” for mass deportations. Advocates say it has prompted fear and anxiety in Chicago’s immigrant communities.
On the same Saturday that Salazar held his workshop, the Mexican consulate in the West Loop was having its own difficult training session, called “It’s Better to Be Prepared.”
“This is a difficult topic,” Deputy Consul Gerardo Guerrero says in Spanish. “Families often don’t want to talk about it. But now is the time to ask: ‘What will happen to my kids if they are born in the U.S. and I haven’t registered [them] as Mexican citizens? What’s going to happen with my properties or bank accounts?’ ”
Guerrero says they’ve been telling Mexican immigrants about their right to remain silent, their right to ask for an attorney and their right to not allow immigration officials to come inside their home without a warrant signed by a judge.
Brenda Delgado, a mutual aid volunteer on the South Side, speaks with participants after a Know Your Rights training on the South Side. Some attendees from Nicaragua and Venezuela had questions about creating an emergency plan for their children in case they get arrested by immigration officials.
Adriana Cardona-Maguigad/WBEZ
In Chicago’s Lake View neighborhood on the North Side, a team of mutual aid volunteers who’ve helped recently arrived migrants when they were at police stations and in shelters are also getting trained on immigrant rights, so they know how to help if ICE comes.
They want to put the infrastructure they built aiding new arrivals into action, to help inform people about what to do if they face deportation.
Volunteer Katie Merrel says they are putting small cards with information about basic rights into emergency kits being delivered to migrants, alongside diapers and food. She also says she’s been encouraging migrants to come up with a plan for what to do if ICE comes.
“Make sure they know a phone number by heart of somebody, of a nonmigrant, so that if they don’t have access to their phones, they can call somebody,” she said.
She’s been recruiting Spanish speakers to be on call.
Other advocates across the city are coming up with phone trees to spread the word if there is a raid or an immigrant parent needs help. They also want to monitor enforcement actions and intervene if ICE agents don’t follow local laws.
Meanwhile, Chicago officials say they are educating city employees about laws that prohibit them from collaborating with immigration agents.
In suburban Lake County, Dulce Ortiz, executive director of Mano a Mano, an organization that empowers immigrant families, has been having immigrants role-play encounters with immigration agents during training sessions, so they know what to do and can practice asserting their rights.
She’s also been offering mental health support.
“I’m a citizen, but I also have loved ones that are undocumented,” Ortiz says. “That’s pretty traumatic.”
Ortiz says many advocates across the state are doing what they can to protect immigrants at risk of getting deported. But she knows not everyone will be safe.
“We can’t promise 100% that we’re going to be able to protect everyone, but what we can promise is that they’re not going to be alone,” Ortiz said. “We got each other. We’ve been through this before. I think it’s going to be worse this time around, but that’s why we’re getting ready and prepared.”
Adriana Cardona-Maguigad covers immigration for WBEZ. Follow her on X @AdrianaCardMag.