“The best time to prepare”: Migrant rights group warns undocumented Texans to plan for deportations

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SAN JUAN — A plan, Joaquin Garcia told a crowd of immigrants last week, they must have a plan.

“Who’s going to pick up the kids from school?” Garcia asked. "Payments on the house, car payments, house bills, the property title –– all of that has to be in your plan."

For the estimated thousands of undocumented immigrants living in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, deportation is a risk they live with every day. That risk has exceptionally increased after Donald Trump won a second term in the White House after spending nearly two years campaigning on the promise of mass deportation.

Garcia is the director of community organizing for La Union del Pueblo Entero, or LUPE, a group that has supported immigrants, farm workers and Hispanic Texans for decades. The meeting last week was part of a "Know Your Rights" campaign that the organization is leading and that echoes similar information sessions that immigrant rights groups across Texas are hosting ahead of Trump’s inauguration.

"We know that President-elect Donald Trump doesn't take office until January 20," Garcia said. "Right now is the best time to prepare."

Asking the crowd to think about those scenarios was not meant to cause fear or panic, Garcia said, but encourage them to create a plan for themselves and their loved ones if they’re ever detained.

"Who is going to be in charge of carrying out your life, so to speak, when you're facing deportation and you're stuck in detention?" Garcia asked again.

Texas is home to about 1.6 million undocumented persons — the second-highest number in the United States behind California –– and the state’s Republican leaders strongly signaled they would readily work with the Trump administration in its deportation efforts.

It was a rainy Friday evening when the group held their first training session. Nonetheless, a crowd of about 50 people showed up to attend the meeting.

Demonstrating what rights they had in certain situations, Garcia and LUPE staff member Marcela Alejandre performed skits depicting different scenarios that undocumented residents could find themselves in such as a traffic stop and being detained for possible deportation.

As those scenarios played out, LUPE staff asked those in the audience to think about what they could do in those situations or how they could avoid them altogether.

Questions lingered among the audience, many of which they raised during the meeting. People raised their hands to ask what information they are required to disclose if they're detained, what legal trouble a citizen could face if they lived with undocumented residents, and whether there were any benefits to self-deportation.

The LUPE staff admittedly didn't have all the answers and urged them to consult with an attorney for guidance. They also reminded them they would have more training sessions with the intention of providing more detailed information.

One undocumented woman in attendance said she's attended LUPE meetings for years and was well aware of her rights. However, she seemed skeptical that the knowledge would save her from deportation.

"The problem is that there are officials that don't care if you're paying insurance or paying taxes, that you have property –– they don't care," she said in Spanish. "They grab you and they take you, even if you know your rights. It just depends on the official you get when they arrest you."

For now, she said, it's a waiting game.

"We really don't know what's going to happen because some people say one thing, other people say another," she said.

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.