FWhether for immigrant advocates, legal services, or rights groups, the threat of anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislation is not new. Earlier this year, the Biden administration was sued by several groups, including the National Immigrant Justice Center and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) over a corruption case. decree which severely restricted asylum applications at the U.S.-Mexico border. President-elect Donald Trump’s first term was defined by tough immigration tactics, including family separation and a travel ban which banned people from certain majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States

“It’s been a long four years. It’s been a very long eight years,” says Keren Zwick, litigation director at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

But 2025 will bring a marked escalation for these groups and the people they serve. With Trump’s return to power, the promise of a radical overhaul the country’s immigration policies, which could include mass expulsions, workplace raids, the expansion of the border wall, the return of the “Remain in Mexico” policy (which requires that migrants who have crossed southern border to enter the United States remain in Mexico while their asylum application is filed). were heard), and the end of birthright citizenship, or the long-standing principle that children born in the United States obtain citizenship.

Learn more: What Donald Trump’s victory means for immigration

“What we expect are drastic changes announced immediately,” says Jennifer Babaie, director of advocacy and legal services at the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which provides free and low-cost legal services to migrants and to refugees.

Here are some ways Babaie, Zwick and immigrant advocates across the country are preparing for Trump’s return to power.

“Know your rights”

In the United States and at Tijuana shelters, immigration advocates have already held “Know Your Rights” group presentations that help migrants understand what border agents expect of them, including what will happen during credible fear interviews.

When asylum seekers enter the United States, they are referred to U.S. border officials who conduct a credible fear interview (CFI), during which the agent determines whether the asylum-seeking migrant has a “credible fear » to return to his country of origin.

Babaie says Las Americas is working to expand these presentations to larger groups and include more information not only for those at the border looking to enter the country, but also for those who are already inside the country and who risk being expelled.

“What we incorporate into these presentations is safety planning,” she said. “Your family should know his status. Everyone should know where their documents are. You need to know if someone is picked up, who your emergency contact is, and how your children know who to notify.

For Melissa Shepard, managing attorney at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), her team has similar priorities. Sheperd oversees ImmDef’s San Diego hospitality project and says one of the things his team is doing is moving their rights submissions onto their website and translating them into multiple languages, including more indigenous languages , in order to reach broader immigrant communities.

Community organization

Babaie says this is a time when communities need to come together, not despite the fear of a second Trump administration, but because of it.

“(Community) is our only way to survive,” she said. “Or we write a million reports. If no one reads them, no one cares. And then, that’s how we get used to losing our rights.”

According to Norma Chávez-Peterson, executive director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, that means going beyond just informing immigrants and their families about their rights.

“It’s really going to require everyone, immigrant rights organizations, local government, state government, anyone, everyone and their mother, who cares and values ​​and wants to protect immigrants,” Chávez-Peterson said. She and her ACLU affiliate met with various local and state officials, including the California attorney general and governor’s offices. California Governor Gavin Newsom has already announced a special session on November 7, which will aim in part to strengthen resources for immigrant families. Chávez-Peterson sees San Diego as a model that other border cities can look to for this type of multi-level cooperation.

Chávez-Peterson also pointed out that as an immigrant herself, she sees how immigrants in the country feel like they have “a huge target on their back” and act with fear. If threatened, immigrants will not immediately turn to the ACLU for help, but rather to their places of trust, including their religious community, their social workers, their teachers, their schools. So, Chávez-Peterson says it’s up to groups like his to provide information. “If ICE is looking for someone at a school, how can we make sure those schools have a policy against sharing information about parents? she said.

This also means that groups across the country have already started sharing information with each other. Babaie and Chávez-Peterson have recently participated in panels, trainings and conferences with other advocacy and law groups, and say these are important for communicating about policies actually implemented so that they can be used immediately.

“(Under the first Trump administration), policies were implemented without any announcement,” Babaie said. “And so the only way the lawyers could figure out what exactly was going on was through word of mouth, not through FOIAs or announcements from the administration.”

Streamline services

Although Trump has made clear some of his potential policy initiatives, immigrant advocates are also preparing to expect the unexpected.

Part of this preparation for Chávez-Peterson includes revitalizing the San Diego Rapid Response Networkwhich includes a helpline, free legal defense against eviction, and other nonprofit organizations, all united in collaboration to help families caught in eviction crises.

“When the family is in crisis, the last thing you want to do is give them a list of numbers to call and pass it around from one organization to another,” she says.

Babaie also points out that this involves preparing teams, already exhausted by the legal battles of the past eight years, for the battles to come.

“We’re all going to have to adopt a more procedural, more detail-oriented way of working, because during the last Trump presidency we received rejections because of a blank space on a form, for example,” she said. .

The most important message, however, she says, is to let immigrant communities and the government know that groups like Las Americas are here and ready: “Part of our obligation is to maintain that we will keep doing what we do. And no matter what you throw at us, we’re just going to turn around and find a way to continue to use our legal practice to defend these people.

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