PORT ANGELES — As President Donald Trump steps into office and reports of migrant arrests flood the media, one emotion is rising for local immigrants and their support systems: fear.
During his campaign, Trump promised “the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America.” And, ever since he was inaugurated Jan. 20, reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity have skyrocketed.
While Trump’s stated aim was to deport undocumented immigrants who have a criminal record, NPR reported that many immigrants without a criminal record are being caught in the sweep.
“The effects of this is fear and anxiety within the [immigrant] community,” said Carlos Osorio of Port Angeles.
Osorio’s family is a mix of documented and undocumented immigrants, he said, and sleep has been pretty much nonexistent since Trump was sworn into office.
“Families are fearful of being separated,” he said. “Coming home and your parents are gone or going to school and your kids are gone.”
While Osorio hasn’t heard news of local raids, he said there seems to be increased border patrol activity. But, even if raids never come, the fear is still there.
Community organizer Lesley Hoare said that fear will motivate immigrants to stop going to doctors’ appointments, court hearings, school and more.
“The day-to-day life and day-to-day routines are interrupted in our communities,” Osorio said.
“It really kind of feels like a reign of terror,” said Courtney Morales Thrall, multicultural center administrator with the Jefferson County Immigrant Rights Advocates (JCIRA). “[It’s] limiting people’s abilities to live full lives.”
Many immigrants are in the process of getting documents, but Danielle Kaufmann, a teacher of English as a second language, said it takes a long time — sometimes up to 15 years.
“It’s an insanely long process,” she said. “And because they don’t have documents, they could be deported at any point.
Rather than going through the stress of being arrested by ICE, people across the country, including from the North Olympic Peninsula, are leaving on their own.
Once they move out, Kaufmann said they’ll continue to work on getting citizenship and eventually try to return to the country in which they built their lives.
“Even my husband,” she said. “If he doesn’t receive his actual papers by October, he’s going to go back, because he doesn’t want to sit in an ICE detention center and have me deal with that.”
The feeling of being unwanted, and being perceived as a criminal, also contributes to the choice to move, Kaufmann said.
“After years and years and years of being here and trying to assimilate … they feel very unwanted,” she said. “So, they just want to go back to the home that loves them.”
In 2010, under the Obama administration, border patrol ramped up its presence in Clallam County. There were sightings of border patrol in Forks almost daily, checkpoints were set up on the road and individuals were stopped due to the color of their skin, Hoare said.
“Out of nowhere, people are separated. Kids are separated from their parents, parents are separated,” Hoare said. “[It’s] the loss of civil liberties and civil rights.”
In 2011, an undocumented immigrant in Forks jumped into a river to escape border patrol. When his body was found days later, a lawsuit ensued. Since then, including during the first Trump administration, Hoare said things have been relatively calm.
But people are worried the situation might return to the days of 2010. And even if mass deportations don’t occur locally, Rebecca Pfaff, who used to work as a provider at the Bogachiel Clinic, said support for Trump’s ideas still remain, and that causes fear on its own.
“What makes me sad is that what he is saying resonates enough with people in our society that they actually agree with him,” Pfaff said.
In Washington, almost 60 percent of voters supported then Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. But many in the state have indicated they think Washington should cooperate with the federal government’s plan to deport undocumented immigrants. Myriad polls indicated support for cooperation hovered at around 50 percent across the state, according to a Seattle Times columnist.
“[The promise of mass deportation] is feeding that mindset that the problems in our society are because of immigration, and mass deportation will be the solution for that,” Osorio said. “That’s completely false.”
“We’re being scapegoated for the economy, for crime,” he added. “[But] we uphold the common good. We work.”
Most economists agree that immigrants help the economy and boost wages, according to a JCIRA fact sheet. Additionally, a study found that U.S. citizens are two times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes than immigrants.
While some people are worried about derogatory interactions with community members, many others said there was a lot of cohesion between immigrants and the outside community, even among people who voted for Trump.
In Forks, even though Trump got around 65 percent of the vote in both precincts, many residents said everyone was supportive of local immigrants and the Hispanic culture.
“It’s a weird dichotomy,” Kaufmann said.
One reason for that might be because of the relationships that have formed in the community.
“It’s my coworker, my kid’s friend, my in-law,” Hoare said.
The Republican party also is more concerned with massively reforming the immigration system than focusing on individual undocumented immigrants who are not criminals, Clallam County Republican Party chair Matthew Roberson said.
“Most people, particularly those in and around the Forks area, are people who came here for a better life,” he said. “We see that.”
However, “it doesn’t mean the rule of law doesn’t need to be respected,” he said. “People can support the individuals while advocating for reforms at the same time, and I think that’s what you’re seeing.”
Still, Kaufmann said seeing support for Trump conveys a message that immigrants are not welcome.
“They drive around town and they see Trump flags,” she said. “To them, they don’t see Trump, they see, ‘We don’t want you here.’”
Immigrants who are undocumented often come here to start a better life for their family, Kaufmann said. They come here to chase the American dream.
If they were to try to cross the border between U.S. and Mexico legally, Kaufmann said it would be a five- to 10-year process with a host of rules and regulations.
“Your family is starving now. Your house is being taken over by criminals now,” she said. “A lot of people say they will do anything for their family, for their children. That’s what these people are doing.”
“At the end of the day, what people want is safety [and] security,” Pfaff said. “They want their children to have better lives than they did. They want independence. They want all the things that our Constitution is promising us.”
If they get deported, many of those individuals might never see their dreams come to fruition.
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
