Trump’s Deportation Machine Targets Working Families & Small Businesses in Reckless Raids

Washington, D.C – Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda continues to cast a wide net—this time targeting working families and small business owners. Despite claims that enforcement would be narrow and focused on public safety threats, these raids continue to reveal the truth: Trump’s immigration policy is cruel, chaotic, and indiscriminate. As his administration has expanded raids into sensitive locations like schools, hospitals, and workplaces, communities are living in fear of having their families broken apart.

The consequences are devastating. In Texas, an 11-year-old girl, Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, died by suicide after being bullied by classmates who told her that ICE would deport her family—part of a growing climate of fear stoked by Trump’s policies. In Memphis, surveillance video captured three plainclothes federal agents raiding a taco truck, confirming the administration’s expansion of immigration enforcement into everyday spaces. Meanwhile, in Santa Cruz, ICE detained Adolfo Gonzalez, a handyman who had lived in the community for 22 years—marking the first known deportation in the county since Trump’s return to office. Across the country, bakery owners are being arrested for employing undocumented workers, ICE agents are detaining fathers in front of their children, and immigrants are skipping medical appointments out of fear of enforcement actions in hospitals and clinics.

Read more about the everyday Americans affected by Trump’s anti-immigrant assault:

AP: “Schools around the US confront anxiety over Trump’s actions on immigration”

“Immigration raids have been shown to impact academic performance for students — even those who are native-born. In North Carolina and California, researchers have found lower attendance and a drop in enrollment among Hispanic students when local police participate in a program that deputizes them to enforce immigration law. Another study found test scores of Hispanic students dropped in schools near the sites of workplace raids.

In Fresno, attendance has dropped since Trump took office by anywhere from 700 to 1,000 students a day. Officials in the central California district have received countless panicked calls from parents about rumored immigration raids – including about raids at schools, said Carlos Castillo, chief of diversity, equity and inclusion at the Fresno Unified School District. The feared school raids have all been hoaxes.

“It goes beyond just the students who … have citizenship status or legal status,” Castillo said. Students are afraid for their parents, relatives and friends, and they’re terrified that immigration agents might raid their schools or homes, he said.”

CNN: “Chatter and rumors about ICE went on for days at school of Texas girl who died by suicide”

“In late January, students at Jocelynn Rojo Carranza’s school spread rumors and speculation that immigration authorities would deport families of students at the largely Hispanic school, according to a parent and another student.

The 11-year-old died by suicide on February 8 – five days after her mother found her unresponsive at their home in Gainesville, Texas, according to an online obituary. Her mother says Jocelynn was bullied by other students who claimed her family was in the US illegally.”

Texas Tribune: “ICE arrests South Texas bakery owners accused of hiring undocumented workers”

“The owners of a South Texas bakery were arrested and charged with harboring undocumented workers, a relatively rare incidence of federal agents pursuing business owners for allegedly employing undocumented immigrants.

Homeland Security Investigations conducted a “worksite enforcement action” at Abby’s Bakery in Los Fresnos on Feb. 12 and said they arrested eight undocumented workers. The agency said the owners, Leonardo Baez and Nora Alicia Avila-Guel were charged with “bringing in and harboring aliens and aiding and abetting the harboring of aliens.”

KUOW NPR: “Amid fears of deportation, immigrants are missing appointments at Seattle-area clinics”

“Cancel one, cancel two, reschedule three, no-show four, no-show five,” he said as he scrolled through his schedule for the day. “Sometimes we don’t get a lot of folks coming in in January, but this is definitely fewer than we’re used to.” Pérez said he wasn’t sure why fewer patients are coming in this year. But a chill has gone through some immigrant communities ever since federal officials said they’ll be enforcing immigration in and near spaces that were previously off-limits, like churches, schools, and hospitals. 

“What we heard was that they are fearful of going to a traditional doctor’s office or a health-care setting where they may be arrested or detained for questioning,” said Lisa Edwards, superintendent of a commission that oversees a public hospital and clinic in Snohomish County.  She said immigrants they serve — even those with legal status — have been avoiding scheduling regular doctor’s appointments, but some are still showing up at urgent care and emergency rooms.” 

KQED: “As ICE Arrests Hit California, Families Broken Up, Working People Detained”

“It was just a regular morning,” said Loreal Duran from Echo Park in Los Angeles, describing her family’s before-school rush to get the kids out the door and loaded into the car.

But on the morning in question, Jan. 23, as her husband fastened their two young children into their seats, an immigration officer walked up, asking Loreal to show identification. “As he got closer to the car, he saw my husband, and basically, he just went around to the other side to grab my husband out of the car and take him away.”

Giovanni Duran, 42, came to California from El Salvador without federal authorization when he was 2 years old, brought by his family. He worked as a busser in a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles, Loreal said. Duran is now being held in the Adelanto detention facility, run by a private company under contract to ICE, awaiting deportation to a country he doesn’t know.”

CalMatters: “Afraid to go to school: Immigrant families in California gripped by fear”

A teacher in Salinas California, Oscar Ramos, described “When I read [my students] stories, they’d make random comments about their pets or their friends or what they’re doing this weekend,” Ramos said. “Now, they talk about ICE. ‘My parents said we can’t go to Walmart because that’s where they’ll pick you up.’ ‘I got sick but we couldn’t go to the hospital because immigration might be there.’ There’s just so much fear.”

Although immigration raids have always been part of life in Salinas, “this time feels different,” Ramos said. “The mood seems more hateful, unpredictable. How far will (Trump) go? How far will he push the limits? Will he send us back? Put us in giant prisons? Separate families? It seems like he doesn’t care. We see it and we feel it.”

That unpredictability has left even those with legal status on edge. Stories abound about citizens being caught in immigration sweeps and detained or sent to Mexico. People worry about losing their visas, or about loved ones getting wrongfully arrested.” 

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The Immigration Hub is a national organization dedicated to advancing fair and just immigration policies through strategic leadership, innovative communications strategies, legislative advocacy and collaborative partnerships.