If a major hurricane approaches Central Florida this season, Maria knows it's dangerous to stay inside her wooden, trailerlike home. In past storms, she evacuated to her sister's sturdier house. If she couldn't get there, a shelter set up at the local high school served as a refuge if needed. But with accelerating detentions and deportations of immigrants across her community of Apopka, Maria, an agricultural worker from Mexico without permanent US legal status, doesn't know if those options are safe, as all risk encountering immigration enforcement agents. "They can go where they want," said Maria, 50, who insisted the AP not use her last name for fear of detention. "There is no limit."
Natural disasters have long posed singular risks for people in the US without permanent legal status. But with the arrival of peak Atlantic hurricane season, immigrants and their advocates say President Trump's robust immigration enforcement agenda has increased the danger. Places considered neutral spaces by immigrants such as schools, hospitals, and emergency management agencies are now suspect, and advocates say agreements by local law enforcement to collaborate with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement make them more vulnerable and compel a choice between being physically safe and avoiding detention.
"Am I going to risk the storm or risk endangering my family at the shelter?" said Dominique O'Connor, an organizer at the Farmworker Association of Florida. People could also face these decisions anywhere that extreme heat, wildfires, or other severe weather requires evacuating, getting supplies, or seeking medical care. Efforts by Trump's administration to expand immigration enforcement capacity mean many of the agencies active in disaster response are increasingly entangled in immigration enforcement.
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Since January, hundreds of law enforcement agencies have signed agreements allowing them to perform certain immigration enforcement actions, most in hurricane-prone Florida and Texas. In Florida, policies could even make people unwilling to drive on evacuation roads, as traffic stops are a frequent tool of detention. Federal and state agencies have said little on whether immigration enforcement would be suspended in a disaster. It wouldn't make much difference to Maria. "With all we've lived, we've lost trust," she says. More here.
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