Rosario's only lifeline is a community group on the messaging app that provides news about immigration raids in Washington neighborhoods - Copyright AFP/File Brendan Smialowski
By AFP
March 31, 2025
Anuj CHOPRA
Fearing a US immigration raid will separate her from her children, an undocumented Honduran immigrant hunkers down in her Washington home, anxiously scouring a WhatsApp group for real-time updates on nearby sweeps.
Rosario, a 35-year-old mother of two, practically lives in hiding in the face of US President Donald Trump’s sweeping campaign to arrest and deport millions of undocumented immigrants since his return to the White House in January.
Her only lifeline is a community group on the messaging app that provides news about immigration raids in Washington neighborhoods — often mixed with unverified or false information.
“You stay informed and stay a little more alert thanks to the group,” Rosario told AFP in her studio apartment, festooned with birthday balloons, stuffed toys, and a wall hanging made from corn husk.
“That way, you get rid of fear a little bit — but fear always persists,” said the part-time dishwasher, who crossed into the United States in 2021 after an arduous journey from her home country.
Rosario, who refused to disclose her real name, peered through her window blinds for any lurking agents from ICE — the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department, which has been deployed to carry out the Trump administration’s promise to target undocumented immigrants.
“Alert: ICE activity was reported at a business center on (Mount) Pleasant around noon,” a message flashed in the group, adding that six masked agents were spotted in the Washington neighborhood and one person was detained.
It was not possible for Rosario to ascertain whether the tip was real or fake.
Still, she remained confident the community group, fed by other immigrants and advocates, provided reliable information — crucial for determining her limited movements to work and to purchase groceries.
– ‘Scary climate’ –
Rosario also puzzled over another morsel of unverified information in the group that had not appeared in the mainstream media: that an undocumented female immigrant was detained by ICE at a school in the Bethesda neighborhood.
Immigration sweeps on educational institutions are rare, but the Trump administration has said it no longer considers sensitive locations such as schools, churches, and hospitals off-limits to agents. The policy has been legally challenged by religious organizations.
Such uncertainty and fear have spawned a flurry of rumors about suspected immigration raids and movements of ICE agents that ricochet across messaging apps and online platforms, leaving immigrant communities on edge.
In February, AFP’s fact-checkers debunked a viral online video that claimed to show an undocumented Colombian woman being expelled from the United States. In reality, it was a fictionalized clip posted in 2023 by an American YouTuber.
Last month, another online video purportedly showed undocumented immigrants being arrested from a US barbershop. AFP found the video staged, with the uniforms worn by the supposed immigration officials appearing inauthentic.
“In the current scary climate, it is hard to know what’s true, what’s inaccurate,” the director of an immigration advocacy group in Washington told AFP, requesting anonymity.
The heightened fears among immigrant communities, he added, have made it harder to “decipher fact from fiction.”
– ‘Fear grabs you’ –
Despite an uptick in immigration arrests, authorities appear to be struggling to meet Trump’s mass deportation goals.
The number of deportation flights since Trump took office on January 20 has been roughly the same as those in the final months of President Joe Biden’s administration, US media reported, citing data collected by an immigration rights advocate.
That has done little to allay fears among the country’s estimated 14 million undocumented immigrants.
Those concerns are aggravated by the government’s shock-and-awe tactics of publicizing raids in major cities and footage of shackled migrants being loaded onto deportation flights.
Amid a lack of reliable information and fears of stepped-up raids, many undocumented immigrants have gone underground, with some even withdrawing their children from school, advocacy groups say.
Many also remain vulnerable to exploitation by their employers.
Elizabeth, an undocumented immigrant and mother of five, avoids the messaging groups filled with unverified information, choosing instead to stay vigilant and aware of her surroundings.
“If you don’t know what is happening, fear grabs you,” she told AFP, declining to share her real name and country of origin.
“Fear is a product of misinformation.”
El Salvador’s Bukele flaunts ‘iron fist’ alliance with Trump
By AFP
April 2, 2025
Both Nayib Bukele and Donald Trump have enthusiastically shared pictures of prisoners shackled, shorn and manhandled while simultaneously highlighting and rejecting objections from judges and opponents
By AFP
April 2, 2025
Both Nayib Bukele and Donald Trump have enthusiastically shared pictures of prisoners shackled, shorn and manhandled while simultaneously highlighting and rejecting objections from judges and opponents
- Copyright EL SALVADOR'S PRESIDENCY PRESS OFFICE/AFP Handout
El Salvador’s pugilistic president has become a key partner for US President Donald Trump’s in-your-face campaign to deport migrants, with both men hoping to reap the political benefits.
Through a rollout of slickly produced videos featuring chained and tattooed men roughly escorted off planes, Nayib Bukele has won the US president’s attention and admiration.
“Thank you President Bukele, of El Salvador, for taking the criminals that were so stupidly allowed, by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, to enter our country, and giving them such a wonderful place to live!” Trump posted on Monday on his TruthSocial platform.
His comments were accompanied by the latest video posted by Bukele featuring heavily staged, militaristic and confrontational clips of migrants arriving in the Central American nation.
Trump’s appreciation was quickly reciprocated: “Grateful for your words, President Trump. Onward together!” Bukele posted.
To cement the relationship, the pair will meet at the White House this month, with Bukele promising to bring “several cans of Diet Coke” for his famously soda-thirsty host.
But behind the hardman camaraderie lies raw politics.
For Bukele, accepting hundreds of deportees from the United States “consolidates his image as the leader who transformed security in El Salvador” said Migration Policy Institute analyst Diego Chaves-Gonzalez.
– Gang crackdown –
Since coming to power in 2019, Bukele has subdued his once gang-plagued nation of about six million people.
Dispensing with warrants and due process, he jailed almost two percent of the population and brought the murder rate down from more than 6,500 a year to just 114, according to official figures.
Security remains central to the “iron fist” political brand that makes Bukele one of the most popular politicians on the planet — with a domestic approval rating hovering above 85 percent.
Welcoming Trump deportees to El Salvador’s mega jail CECOT has not just made Bukele a friend in the White House, but also allowed the 43-year-old president to put the signature 40,000-prisoner jail on full display.
The sprawling facility’s austere concrete walls and army of masked guards have featured prominently in videos produced by Bukele’s government.
Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even visited CECOT, posing in front of a cell overflowing with seemingly dead-eyed and heavily tattooed men.
– ‘Propaganda’ –
Both Bukele and Trump have enthusiastically shared pictures of prisoners shackled, shorn and manhandled while simultaneously highlighting and rejecting objections from judges and opponents.
In that sense, Trump appears to be echoing Bukele’s political imagery to appeal to his own base of US voters.
“It is a sign that Trump is interested in ‘iron fist’ propaganda and disobeying judicial rulings,” said Salvadoran political analyst Napoleon Campos.
That heavy-handed approach has its risks. The White House was forced into an embarrassing admission on Tuesday that an “administrative error” had seen a Salvadoran man living in the United States under protected legal status swept up in the hurried deportation process and sent to Bukele’s prison.
Even so, a recent CBS poll showed 53 percent of voters, and an overwhelming majority of Republicans, approve of Trump’s handling of immigration — a higher approval rating than he receives on the economy.
Aside from political benefits for both men, there is a potential security and economic boon for Bukele.
His government received six million dollars for taking deportees, a fee that Bukele described as “a very low fee for them, but a high one for us.”
He also received more than 20 allegedly high-ranking members of El Salvador’s most notorious gang MS-13, who were being held in the United States.
Bukele claimed that would help “finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13, including its former and new members, money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators, and sponsors.”
And there is the promise of US investment in El Salvador, a country which still has a per capita income comparable to Iraq or war-ravaged Ukraine.
When he heads to the White House this month, Bukele will be hoping for more than warm words and a few cans of Diet Coke as payback for his support.
El Salvador’s pugilistic president has become a key partner for US President Donald Trump’s in-your-face campaign to deport migrants, with both men hoping to reap the political benefits.
Through a rollout of slickly produced videos featuring chained and tattooed men roughly escorted off planes, Nayib Bukele has won the US president’s attention and admiration.
“Thank you President Bukele, of El Salvador, for taking the criminals that were so stupidly allowed, by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, to enter our country, and giving them such a wonderful place to live!” Trump posted on Monday on his TruthSocial platform.
His comments were accompanied by the latest video posted by Bukele featuring heavily staged, militaristic and confrontational clips of migrants arriving in the Central American nation.
Trump’s appreciation was quickly reciprocated: “Grateful for your words, President Trump. Onward together!” Bukele posted.
To cement the relationship, the pair will meet at the White House this month, with Bukele promising to bring “several cans of Diet Coke” for his famously soda-thirsty host.
But behind the hardman camaraderie lies raw politics.
For Bukele, accepting hundreds of deportees from the United States “consolidates his image as the leader who transformed security in El Salvador” said Migration Policy Institute analyst Diego Chaves-Gonzalez.
– Gang crackdown –
Since coming to power in 2019, Bukele has subdued his once gang-plagued nation of about six million people.
Dispensing with warrants and due process, he jailed almost two percent of the population and brought the murder rate down from more than 6,500 a year to just 114, according to official figures.
Security remains central to the “iron fist” political brand that makes Bukele one of the most popular politicians on the planet — with a domestic approval rating hovering above 85 percent.
Welcoming Trump deportees to El Salvador’s mega jail CECOT has not just made Bukele a friend in the White House, but also allowed the 43-year-old president to put the signature 40,000-prisoner jail on full display.
The sprawling facility’s austere concrete walls and army of masked guards have featured prominently in videos produced by Bukele’s government.
Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even visited CECOT, posing in front of a cell overflowing with seemingly dead-eyed and heavily tattooed men.
– ‘Propaganda’ –
Both Bukele and Trump have enthusiastically shared pictures of prisoners shackled, shorn and manhandled while simultaneously highlighting and rejecting objections from judges and opponents.
In that sense, Trump appears to be echoing Bukele’s political imagery to appeal to his own base of US voters.
“It is a sign that Trump is interested in ‘iron fist’ propaganda and disobeying judicial rulings,” said Salvadoran political analyst Napoleon Campos.
That heavy-handed approach has its risks. The White House was forced into an embarrassing admission on Tuesday that an “administrative error” had seen a Salvadoran man living in the United States under protected legal status swept up in the hurried deportation process and sent to Bukele’s prison.
Even so, a recent CBS poll showed 53 percent of voters, and an overwhelming majority of Republicans, approve of Trump’s handling of immigration — a higher approval rating than he receives on the economy.
Aside from political benefits for both men, there is a potential security and economic boon for Bukele.
His government received six million dollars for taking deportees, a fee that Bukele described as “a very low fee for them, but a high one for us.”
He also received more than 20 allegedly high-ranking members of El Salvador’s most notorious gang MS-13, who were being held in the United States.
Bukele claimed that would help “finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13, including its former and new members, money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators, and sponsors.”
And there is the promise of US investment in El Salvador, a country which still has a per capita income comparable to Iraq or war-ravaged Ukraine.
When he heads to the White House this month, Bukele will be hoping for more than warm words and a few cans of Diet Coke as payback for his support.
No comments:
Post a Comment