With Trump’s win, Bay Area immigrant rights organizations prepare for another long fight

Every week, a handful of immigrants show up at the Women’s Building in San Francisco’s Mission District for a community meeting. Behind the building’s beautiful facade featuring depictions of women heroes both real and mythical, people usually discuss the specific issues that have come up in their immigration journey, like the difficulty of filling out work papers or paying taxes. 

On Wednesday, instead, they talked about how to act when a cop tries to corral them on the street.

It was the first meeting there of the second Trump era. Mujeres Unidas y Activas, a local nonprofit focused on protecting immigrant rights, organized the event, with nearly 30 people from all over the Bay Area in attendance. Tuesday’s election forced them to open up about their thoughts and fears around the plans of a man whose previous administration violently targeted their lives and those of their loved ones. 

In his second term, Trump has pledged to conduct the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history on Jan. 20 when he takes office; threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico if it doesn’t stop the northbound flow of migrants and fentanyl; and described plans to use the military as part of his crackdown, contemplating deploying the National Guard to aid in deportations if necessary.

According to Alma Santana, the director of immigrant rights for Mujeres Unidas y Activas, the conversation was pragmatic, focused on the basic plans people could begin making to prepare for immigrant raids. How to deal with police, which papers to have on hand, how to provide those papers: Even the little details have to be worked out in advance. The group also strongly communicated that immigrants maintain rights as workers and as human beings even if they don’t have legal papers. 

“We wanted to try to stay calm and to work toward what was to come,” said Santana in Spanish. 

Most who attended the meeting were women afraid of deportation, with some already thinking about filling their suitcases to return to their home country. Others worried what would happen if they were taken away and had to leave their children in the U.S. Yet others worried their children would lose future life opportunities if they were deported with them. 

Santana said that group leaders emphasized that they are working to strengthen their ties to allies who can help them against coordinated attacks, especially from the combined force of ICE and local police departments. They are currently working on partnering with lawyers who will represent their cases in court. They’re also trying to find new political allies who can eventually help develop a direct path to citizenship. 

Santana said she was frustrated with the election result but that she and her colleagues believe “something good” will come out of this newly reignited “fire.” 

Sylvia Lopez, who works on the nonprofit’s civic participation, grew up in the Mexican state of Oaxaca and has been organizing immigrant actions for nearly 20 years. She was also at the meeting. She said that her most significant worries over the last 24 hours are about the increase in violence and discrimination undocumented immigrants are bound to face, even in the putatively liberal Bay Area. That’s where connecting with allies is necessary. 

“Staying in communication with organizations like El Centro Legal de La Raza [in Oakland’s Fruitvale district] to deal with last-minute issues is crucial,” she said. 

Such coordination requires a communications apparatus. The Mujeres Unidas y Activas team will rely on texting and WhatsApp services so members can contact their clients anytime and respond as soon as possible. 

Lopez said she’s confident her group will be able to fight back against the wave of attacks to come. Because Mujeres Unidas y Activas is well situated in the immigrant community, Lopez and her colleagues have insight into how best to help and who needs it the most. 

Other local and state organizations are already in talks for a coordinated response to attacks. 

Staff at the California Immigrant Policy Center, which has offices in Oakland and Los Angeles and focuses on passing progressive immigration policies, spent most of Wednesday in meetings discussing how to respond to the Trump election. 

Executive director Masih Fouladi said in a statement Wednesday that the group was “deeply disappointed” that the Republican nominee had won after leading a campaign of immigrant hate and xenophobia. He focused on the previous wins against Trump’s administration and called for city and state leaders to reject deportations again. 

“We must remember that we have been here before. Together, we resisted Trump’s worst impulses and rejected his most devastating policies,” he said. “This is the time for us to organize and build power. This is the time to reach out to community-based organizations and lend your strength to our movement.”

Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who argued challenges to immigration restrictions during Trump’s first term, said “Many of the policies Trump is advocating and promising, like use of the military, are illegal and we are prepared to challenge them.” An ACLU “roadmap” on Trump’s reelection described plans to push legislators to block deportations and make cuts to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention operations. It also envisioned “a civil rights firewall” to protect immigrants and litigation against deportations.

Courtney McCausland, co-director of the immigration unit of the East Bay Community Law Center in Berkeley, said the center will be “doubling down on our commitment to robust and zealous representation of our clients in exercising their right to obtain the benefits and protections to which they are legally entitled.”

Also, the center is working “to train the next generation of lawyers to be vigilant against manipulations of the systems of the rule of law in the United States, and to recognize the limits of that system as it exists,” McCausland said.

But immigrant advocates said the impact from his election will likely be massive. California is home to more immigrants than any other state in the nation,about 10.6 million people, as well as the most unauthorized immigrants, according to 2022 numbers compiled by the Pew Research Center. Immigrants make up more than a fourth of the state’s population, and nearly half of all children in California have at least one immigrant parent. 

Trump’s border policies may also have significant impacts on all Californians by disrupting trade and expanding surveillance.

“Given the indiscriminate nature of mass surveillance, it is possible that U.S. citizens and others permanently in the country will also be caught in its web,” said Petra Molnar, a Harvard faculty associate, lawyer and author of the book “The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”

The Berkeley’s City Council declared it a City of Refuge in 1971 and has had occasion to re-affirm that status several times since, including in 2007 during local raids by the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and in 2015 when the city said it would welcome Syrian refugees.

During his first term in office, Trump promised to punish sanctuary cities like Berkeley that refuse to comply with immigration law. Berkeley could have lost up to $11.5 million in federal funds if he went through with his promise.

“After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, I co-authored an amendment to our Refuge Policy Regarding Procedures during ICE intervention to counter increased federal immigration enforcement,” Berkeley councilmember Sophie Hahn, who is leading the race for mayor, told Berkeleyside Wednesday.

Hahn said that Berkeley’s legislation explicitly prohibits city employees from assisting in federal immigration enforcement.

Shortly after Trump was elected in 2016, the Berkeley Unified School District adopted a policy affirming undocumented children’s right to a public education and promised not to request information about students’ or parents’ immigration status or require social security numbers on school forms.

“If the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency asks for access to a school or for access to student information, they will be politely denied and referred directly to the Superintendent or Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services who will refer the matter to the District’s legal counsel,” Donald Evans, the superintendent of BUSD, said at the time. “Anyone in our schools seeking answers to questions about immigration will be referred to local non-profit immigration law organizations, such as the East Bay Community Law Center and the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant or other recommended resources available on the district website.”

Berkeleyside’s Janis Mara and Frances Dinkelspiel and CalMatters’ Wendy Fry contributed reporting to this story.