The night after Donald Trump was elected president, Daniel Vingo stood in a church where he once sought refuge after fleeing Angola and considered what an administration calling for mass deportations could mean for asylum-seekers like him.
He now lives in a Seattle apartment, has secured a work permit and is employed by a nonprofit serving homeless families. Still, he worries about Trump’s distaste for even some legal immigrants, like the Haitians in Ohio with Temporary Protected Status the Republican president-elect falsely accused of eating cats and dogs.
“It’s very dangerous for us,” Vingo said after interpreting at a meeting for dozens of migrants staying at Riverton Park United Methodist Church in Tukwila. “They can deport us any time.”
The next day, German Marcial, a Mexican immigrant and U.S. citizen who voted for Trump, was sorting through his feelings. He said he preferred the election’s outcome to the alternative but wasn’t exactly celebrating.
After a period of indecision, Marcial said he supported Trump because of the economy. Inflation, in particular gas prices, has eaten into his income from a small South King County trucking company. But he doesn’t agree with the president-elect’s deportation plan and hopes it’s just talk. “Otherwise, it will be bad for the community,” he said.
Such is the swirl of emotions among Seattle-area immigrants in the days following an election in which migration and border security reigned as central issues. One-quarter of King County’s population was born outside the U.S., and here, like elsewhere, political views vary. As commentators have noted, Trump made huge gains among Latino voters, some of whom are immigrants. They may or may not agree with the Republican standard-bearer’s dark view of migration and border security.
“I was shocked to see so many immigrants from my country supporting Trump,” said Ghaddra González Castillo, who came to the U.S. from Venezuela 30 years ago. A consultant for Entre Hermanos, an organization serving LGBTQ+ Latinos, she said the revelation made her unsure of whom she could talk to about her distress at Trump’s win.
She notes the fear many local immigrants feel, especially among an estimated 246,000 Washingtonians who don’t have legal status in the U.S., as of a 2019 report from the Migration Policy Institute.
Another common feeling: uncertainty. Will Trump make good on his deportation promises? Can he, given the practical difficulties of rounding up millions of people nationwide? What protection, if any, can Washington offer?
In a postelection news conference Thursday, state Attorney General and Governor-elect Bob Ferguson said his office has been preparing for a possible Trump presidency for months. Among scenarios Ferguson is bracing for is the use of Republican states’ National Guard troops to carry out mass roundups of undocumented immigrants as well as threats, as Trump made in his first term, to withhold federal funding from so-called sanctuary jurisdictions like Washington.
The 2019 Keep Washington Working Act largely prohibits local officials from cooperating with immigration enforcement. But that doesn’t stop federal agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from conducting such enforcement on its own locally.
Ferguson, a Democrat who initiated 55 lawsuits against the first Trump administration, winning almost all, said he was prepared to sue if the president-elect reaches beyond his authority. But he, and Attorney General-elect Nick Brown, a Democrat also at the news conference, didn’t get into specifics. Both said it was too soon to talk about legal strategies before seeing what Trump actually does.
Ferguson modified expectations to some extent. Despite potential lawsuits and his ability to use the bully pulpit, he said: “I want to be clear, and this is important: The president has a lot of power.”
Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, similarly noted that, while Congress sets immigration laws, the president has broad authority over certain programs.
Examples include Temporary Protected Status for people from certain countries, like Haiti and El Salvador, where conditions are judged to be unsafe.
Another prime target: the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for people who came to the U.S. illegally as children. Roughly 16,000 DACA recipients lived in Washington as of 2019.
Attacks on these programs wouldn’t necessarily be successful. The president has to follow certain procedures, like providing an explanation of his decisions. In Trump’s first term, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked him from ending DACA for that reason, though the program’s fate is still tied up in the courts.
Immigration enforcement also has to abide by certain rules. That’s true even if Trump declares every undocumented person at risk of arrest, scrapping directives from President Joe Biden prioritizing those who recently arrived or have criminal records. ICE agents can’t burst into homes without a judicial warrant, for instance, Adams said.
But, like Ferguson and Brown, the immigrant rights lawyer said he can’t start drafting challenges before seeing exactly how Trump goes about things.
“It’s kind of a guessing game,” Adams said.
While the future is unknown, “I’d rather be super prepared,” said Vania Adasme, a co-executive director of Casa Latina. The Seattle nonprofit provides services to immigrants including matching workers with day labor and housecleaning jobs. It does not directly employ workers and asks no questions about legal status.
For the last week, the organization has been on high alert.
Adasme’s worries range from possible ICE raids after Trump takes office to violence from anti-immigrant vigilantes.
To that end, the organization has checked cameras around its property installed during the first Trump administration to make sure they’re working and trimmed trees blocking the cameras. It has reiterated a strict policy not to let anyone on the premises without a Casa Latina ID. And, along with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, it held a “self-defense” workshop days before the election.
The focus was on knowing your rights and preparing individual plans. If ICE comes to your doorstep, people should “say their name and that’s it,” said Silvia González, Casa Latina’s community organizing manager. Those with children should arrange places for them to stay in an emergency. Most important, she said, people need to memorize the number of someone they can call if they’re arrested.
Carlos, a Peruvian immigrant who like several others interviewed asked not to be fully identified given possible risks, paid careful attention. Asked for his takeaways from the workshop early one morning the following week, he noted the right to remain silent. He has a friend he can call if detained, he said while waiting for a job opportunity at Casa Latina.
“I’m not afraid of him,” Carlos said of Trump. But he also said he would be sad to be forced out of the U.S. after a dozen years here. He started out with nothing, he added, but now has good friends, neighbors and clients.
“This country gave me the opportunity to grow,” Carlos said.
Miguel, at Casa Latina the same morning, said he would accept whatever happens. “If I have to leave, I have to leave,” said the Guatemalan asylum-seeker.
Others were weighing the risks. One worker from Venezuela wasn’t sure if the dangers he’s been hearing about were real. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said. Another, from El Salvador, said he felt safe within the walls of Casa Latina. Outside might be different.
At Riverton Park United Methodist Church, it was hard to tell what many of the migrants staying there really thought about the election. Some who gathered over tables in the packed space Wednesday evening, with suitcases and belongings in every corner, said they were happy about Trump’s victory.
“We have an obligation to like him,” one said.
Several also stressed the president should work for all people, no matter what race. And one man just laughed, recalling the cats-and-dogs comment.
The Rev. Jan Bolerjack recalled that on election night, the church’s residents crowded around a TV. “I just watched their eyes,” she said. They looked alarmed, but she guessed some may be unsure if they should say so.
Most come from countries wracked by violence and authoritarianism and survived monthslong, perilous journeys to get here. “We left our country for here because the United States is the country of peace, the country of liberty,” one man said as he contemplated the notion of returning.
Bolerjack was prepared to address concerns about Trump’s election at Wednesday evening’s meeting for residents. She was primed by her advisory team, who had asked, referring to the migrants: How are we going to protect them?
Her ready response: “We have several months to put this together. Nothing is going to happen that fast.”
But while Vingo voiced apprehensions after the meeting, nobody brought up Trump during the meeting itself. So Bolerjack concentrated on day-to-day matters: the need to keep cleaning amid a cockroach problem, shortages of supplies including milk and eggs, instructions on where to go if you’re sick.
She also announced some good news: The church had given every resident’s name to a just-launched $25 million state program for migrants offering housing and other assistance.
It’s the kind of migrant-friendly program that might heighten Trump’s antagonism toward Washington, but that was left unsaid. The room broke out in applause.