Amid fears of deportation, immigration advocates help families prepare

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Tomas lives in New Bedford with his wife and child. He’s from Guatemala, but has had permanent legal status in the U.S. for over a decade. Other Guatemalans also call New Bedford home, and they also have kids. But some don’t have legal status.

With deportation threats looming, Tomas and his wife signed a form that makes a promise to another set of Guatemalan parents in the community. 

Immigration 2025 / Third in a series

If they get deported, Tomas and his wife will look after their three children. They’ll have authority over school records and medical decisions, but their ultimate task will be to buy the children plane tickets and return them safely to Guatemala to be with their parents.

In New Bedford, an estimated 20,000 residents are foreign-born, per U.S. Census data, or about 20% of the city’s population. Within that subset is a mix: naturalized citizens, green-card holders, visa holders, and undocumented immigrants.

Some are parents, who have been applying for U.S. passports for their children, who may be citizens through birthright. Others are going further to prepare by confronting a painful possibility: they get taken by the authorities, and their children get left behind.

“My question is, what are the people who are here illegally and have kids thinking?” said Tomas in Spanish. “What are they waiting for? If they get deported, what will happen to the kids? … A kid is our blood. I wouldn’t dispose of my kids.”

Preparing for separation in uncertain times

The flurry of immigrants and local organizations readying against mass deportation threats isn’t new — it’s muscle memory, forged in the fallout of the Michael Bianco Inc. raid. 

In March 2007, more than 300 ICE agents raided an apparel plant in New Bedford’s South End, arresting 361 undocumented workers, many of whom were parents. What followed was nothing short of chaos.

“One fear we had was that [Department of Children and Families] would step in and take custody of the children,” said Ondine Galvez Sniffin, an immigration lawyer in New Bedford who was working for Catholic Social Services at the time of the raid.

It was in those frantic hours, as the community gathered at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, that immigration advocates and attorneys grasped the urgent need to protect children whose parents had been detained.

Now, lawyers and advocates are urging families with members at risk of deportation to prepare for emergencies, including family separation. They advise organizing vital documents, discussing contingency plans as a family, and assigning a caregiver with the authority to make important decisions for the child if the parents are detained.

One document is called the caregiver authorization affidavit, and it’s what Tomas signed. It acts as a power of attorney, allowing the designated caregiver to make medical and educational decisions, complete essential paperwork, and apply for benefits on behalf of immigrant minors. 

It can be reversed rather easily, but is an important protection parents should consider having in place, advocates say. 

“One day, they asked us if we could do this to protect their kids because they didn’t want to lose them,” Tomas said. “We agreed to help them. If they are asking for a favor, we have to help them.”

The Community Economic Development Center in New Bedford assisted Tomas and the family with understanding the form. Staff there are talking about the caregiver forms with many immigrant families that come for other services.

“It’s very sensitive and a very difficult conversation. A lot of times it starts off with a person coming in that wants assistance to get their child a U.S. passport,” said Corinn Williams, executive director of the CEDC. “They may not be ready to emotionally deal with the affidavit at that point. But it comes along.”

“It’s something so painful that no parent wants to think about,” she continued. “Imagine if parents were taken into immigration custody and the child was taken into DCF custody on top of it. Just imagine the level of trauma for the child.”

Tomas is concerned about that, too.

“We heard that when the parents get caught, the kids get separated from their parents and put into foster homes or with other people they don’t know,” Tomas said. “We are Guatemalans; we have the same culture. If they get placed in a different house with a different culture, they’ll get sick, and then it’ll turn into a problem. It takes time to adapt to new people.”

A community on alert: organizing for immigrant protection

The renewed sense of fear within immigrant communities and urgency to prepare could perhaps be measured by a 4×4 red card.

Organizations for years have handed out these cards — perfectly sized to slip into a wallet — to immigrant communities. Printed in multiple languages, they open with a clear message: “I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution.”

The message is meant for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, and helps protect and inform the immigrant community about their rights if they are stopped by immigration agents. 

But days into the Trump administration, the producer of the cards suspended sales, citing “unprecedented demand” and a “significant backlog,” Scripps News reported. 

Stacks of red cards greet visitors the moment they step into the CEDC in the North End — arranged in the hallway at the entrance and stapled to flyers on the walls. Amid the steady hum of staff assisting with resumes, job applications, and tax filings, a different kind of conversation has unfolded — one weighted with urgency. Staff pause, their expressions shifting as they broach the harder questions: What steps are you taking to protect your child from deportation?

The CEDC has teamed up with other local organizations, like the Immigrants’ Assistance Center, as well as the public school system, to train staff and the community about immigrants’ rights. Advocates have held these “Know Your Rights” training sessions over the years, but note an increased demand running up to and after the election. 

The meetings have also brought in local law enforcement, including the New Bedford Police Department and the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office. Under Massachusetts law, local and state police cannot play any role in detaining people for immigration enforcement. 

The new administration has driven home its goal of mass deportation, using social media to publish daily statistics on how many people ICE agents arrested between Jan. 23 and 31. Those numbers averaged about 810 arrests per day, far above the Biden administration’s average of 310 ICE arrests per day in fiscal year 2024. 

Sarang Sekhavat, chief of staff at the Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said that the Trump administration’s strategy is designed to induce “self-deportation” — that is, to get people to return to their home countries rather than risk arrest.

“It means terrifying communities, scaring people, and placing them in such precarious positions that the hope is they leave on their own,” Sekhavat said.

Schools prepare for possible ICE encounters

President Trump rescinded protections for so-called sensitive locations where migrants once sought refuge without fear, including health care facilities, churches, and schools. 

As a consequence, families wary that ICE officers might begin to patrol school grounds may avoid picking up and dropping off their kids. 

Williams said that in December, New Bedford police charged an immigrant woman who has a work permit with overcrowding for having too many children in her van on school property. It was an alleged criminal offense, which can derail an immigration case and make one a target of immigration authorities.

She had a valid driver’s license, but not a “livery” license, Williams said. 

CEDC helped convince a magistrate to dismiss the charge. But it remains concerned about other immigrants in court. “We worry about that… If ICE has a presence in court, folks could be vulnerable. It may be more aggressive under Trump.”

Andrew O’Leary, superintendent of New Bedford Public Schools, shared guidance with the school community, laying out how the district will interact with immigration officials should they show up. It matches that of other Massachusetts schools.

“I want to assure you all that our schools will remain a safe place where our work and service to families will not be disrupted,” O’Leary said in a Jan. 24 letter to the school community. 

“Immigration enforcement is unlikely to occur around our school buildings,” he continued. “However, in the unlikely event of such activities, New Bedford Public Schools leadership and school staff have been trained in our protocols for restricted building access, protecting student privacy, and offering family support.”

O’Leary said the district is following guidance from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office on access and information sharing with immigration authorities. The guidance includes information on how schools should respond if ICE agents request to interview students or request student information. 

“We have to be ready for all kinds of disruption” as a school, O’Leary said, whether that be a housing issue affecting a student’s life, or the deportation of a parent, in which case the school is prepared to respond and ensure the student gets the resources they need. 

Advocates try to inform without causing fear

With the new administration in power, separating Trump’s rhetoric and rumors of ICE presence from the reality of enforcement has been difficult. Advocates have tried to be realistic, while also cautioning the community about the level of risk.

MIRA’s Sekhavat said immigrants’ advocates face a twofold challenge: informing immigrants and preparing them for what might happen, without needlessly heightening their fears.

“I feel that right now, under this presidency, there is no check and balance,” said Jennifer Velarde, a New Bedford-based immigration attorney. “All the power has been handed to this president, allowing him to do whatever he wants. Well, there is a Constitution. There are laws. And we are protected by those laws.”

But laws, she knows, are only as strong as the will to enforce them. In the face of escalating immigration crackdowns, Velarde warns against staying silent. 

“We have to raise our voices,” she said. “We have to let our leaders — our mayor, our police — know that we do not want families to be separated, that they need protection, and that there must be a plan in place to ensure it.”

In New Bedford, rumors on social media have been circulating about ICE presence or raids. It prompted a local priest to cancel catechism classes, fearing that ICE might be in the area, according to Williams. In the following days, some shops and restaurants on Acushnet Avenue began reducing their operating hours, she said.

“There’s just so much room for imagination,” said Williams. “The community is on edge.”

Email Eleonora Bianchi at ebianchi@newbedfordlight.org and Anastasia Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org. Antonio Beltrán contributed to this story.