“Every day immigration agents are here looking for people to deport”
Portuguese families are leaving the United States of their own accord in order to avoid forced deportation by the US government, the president of the New Bedford Immigrant Assistance Centre has confirmed to Lusa.
Helena da Silva Hughes, president of the Immigrant Assistance Centre – a non-profit organisation in New Bedford, Massachusetts – said that the total number of families who have left the country is uncertain, but said that she expected it to increase in the coming months as the school year draws to a close.
“We have a lot of people who have already bought their plane tickets and left, but we also have a lot of people who are getting ready to leave and are just waiting for their children to finish this school year in June,” she explained.
“In addition, we have many families who have been here for 15, 20 years and are trying to sell their businesses, their companies and their homes so that they can return to Portugal without any unfinished business,” she added, referring to Portuguese with businesses in the catering, construction and cleaning sectors.
The families in question, predominantly from the Azores, have been living in an illegal situation in the US. Their decision to quit the country that has become their home stems from the fear of being dragged into a forced process by Donald Trump’s administration, which implies possible detention in immigration centres and family separation.
According to da Silva Hughes, “every day immigration agents are in the New Bedford area looking for people to deport” – approaching immigrants on the streets as they are on their way to work.
She said that immigrants from Central America have been the main targets because of their “racial profile” making them “easily identifiable.”
Even so, many Portuguese are “very scared,” she said – recounting the case of one man who said he was afraid to leave his house for fear of being taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
“People are afraid to leave their homes, because home is where they are protected,” she said. “We’ve had cases of immigrants having their car windows smashed to be taken away by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents.”
She stressed that there are no known such cases with Portuguese nationals.
“Before Trump was elected, a person could only be detained by immigration agents if they were accompanied by a warrant signed by a judge,” da Silva Hughes explained. “However, what we are seeing now is that this process is not being respected. The agents are simply doing whatever they want to stop people and deport them.”
To this end, da Silva Hughes has for some months been preparing an emergency plan for families, so that in cases where the parents are in an illegal situation and the child was born on US soil and has US citizenship, the minor can be placed temporarily in the care of someone approved by the parents, instead of taken by the state.
“I think it’s one of the most important jobs we’re doing,” she said. “It’s a plan that is very important for these families to be prepared in case they are caught by immigration agents.”
President Trump, who has promised the largest mass deportation in history, this month signed an executive order to encourage some undocumented immigrants to “self-deport” by offering them free flights home.
Before this, his administration had already announced that it will award $1,000 dollars (around €900 at the current exchange rate) to immigrants who leave voluntarily, in addition to covering their transport costs.
However, da Silva Hughes assured Lusa that this measure would not be taken up by Portuguese immigrants, since this process of “self-deportation” would involve registration – and people don’t want the US government to have access to their data.
Da Silva Hughes stressed that there are currently “no ways” for illegal immigrants to regularise their migratory situation and stay permanently in the country, advising against anyone travelling to the United States on a tourist visa and then outstaying that visa.
Source: LUSA
