The Trump Administration has deported almost 85,000 people for about half of this year.
In New Orleans, many immigrants are worried about their future. Hundreds held a candlelight vigil last night to protest deportations.
Leti Casildo says the New Orleans Police Department has a policy against rounding up people for immigration checks, but she’s not sure about other communities.
Rachel Taber of the Congress of Day Laborers, New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice translates:
“Truthfully we do have policies here in New Orleans that ICE and police do not collaborate, but that is exclusively for Orleans Parish. And we know that we’re living in a very wide metropolitan region and many people who are members of our community, they’ll work in different parishes, right? They’ll work in Jefferson Parish, for instance, on the West Bank. It’s not just Orleans.”
Casildo says she came to the US from Honduras 13 years ago. One of her three children was born in America, and the child is afraid when she goes to school that the family will be gone when she comes home.
Taber says immigrant communities have the same concerns.
“Every person who is taken away from our community is one less person to support our local economy, one less parent supporting their children in school," says Taber. "How are these children going to grow up in New Orleans without their parents here?”
Vigil organizers are calling on New Orleans mayoral candidates to speak on the matter.
