The Heartland Workers Center addressed a roomful of about sixty people at their center Wednesday evening to discuss the new changes that came with President Trump's new executive orders on immigration.
Sergio Sosa, the Executive Director for the center says his office has been flooded with phone calls for the last few weeks, which prompted him and other partnering organizations to organize community workshops on immigration rights.
“We got so many phone calls. People were scared, asking ‘what do we do? What don’t we do?’” says Sosa. “This kid was asking me, ‘Sergio is my mom going to be deported?”
Sosa says people are planning for the worst.
“There are some people who are looking for shelter; you know if something happens, they want to know where they can go for safety. People are buying extra food and water just in case,” says Sosa.
In combined efforts with Justice For Our Neighbors Nebraska, HWC organized the two-hour workshop to answer peoples’ questions regarding their immigration rights and how to prepare for their future.
“All these executive orders that have been signed recently have just created this environment of fear and people worrying about so many things, and people panicking,” says Roxana Cortes Reyes, an immigration lawyer with Justice For Our Neighbors Nebraska.”I think that the best way to fight that fear is to educate yourself,” says Reyes.
Organizers say the workshop was not mean to create fear, but to educate families and individuals on what the new orders mean and how they could affect their communities.
"Documented or undocumented there are still some rights that the constitution grants to people who are living here just by the virtue of them living here,” says Reyes.
The workshop also reviewed ways to create a proactive plan in case individuals are deported, such as which documents to carry, ways to calmly speak to law enforcement during any type of encounter, and emergency plans should parents be deported, leaving their kids behind.
Reyes says many immigrants are now looking into setting up power of attorney to relatives or trusted friends who are citizens. Should an individual be deported, the trusted person could be responsible for their physical assets.
“I completely understand their panic, but everything should be done calmly and rationally. And the best way to do that is to get the correct information,” says Reyes.
Sosa says speaking to the immigrant community is the first step in protecting undocumented immigrants and their families from separation. He says he’d like to expand the dialogue to local government.
"We need more dialogue, not just public officials but policemen and the mayor to discuss what are the safety plans for the city,” adds Sosa.
The Heartland Workers Center, along with Justice For Our Neighbors Nebraska, Nebraska Appleseed, and the Latino Center of the Midlands will be organizing more workshops in the next few weeks.
