Columbus undocumented immigrants fear raids, deportations

National accounts of increased raids and deportations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under President Donald Trump’s administration have ignited panic among some undocumented immigrants in Columbus.

The Rev. Ivelisse Quiñones, director of Hispanic ministries at St. Luke United Methodist Church, said the angst is evident at church on Sunday mornings.

“Yes, people are very concerned,” said the associate pastor at St. Luke and lead pastor of the Hispanic ministry, which has about 50 congregants. “We are transporting many of our members because they’re afraid of driving. ... And every Sunday, I make sure I’m abreast of the news that happens during the week. Before I start preaching, I give them 15 minutes of training, teaching and counseling, because there are a lot of worries here.”

Quiñones said there are about 30 Hispanic churches in Columbus and all have a percentage of undocumented members. Many of the illegal immigrants are day laborers and factory workers who have been in the community for 15 to 20 years. Some are homeowners and parents of children born in the United States.

“Our church is an open door, an open heart, an open hand,” Quiñones said. “So I’m not going to ask anybody when they’re coming in, ‘Are you undocumented? Are you married? Are you living in sin?’ ... I just receive them.”

Columbus law enforcement

Quiñones said Columbus law enforcement officials have been very gracious to immigrants over the years, and she hopes that will continue.

“I understand that we are not being profiled, not from the city or from the Sheriff’s Department,” she said. “We understand if (someone) crosses the stop sign, or they don’t have their lights, or they don’t have insurance — citizen or non-citizen — you have to pay for your mistakes.

“But one thing I can tell you, of many of the counties in the South, this is one of the most sensible, and sensitive, and Christian-like,” she said. “I know for a fact that our (police) chief, the old sheriff, and the new sheriff, they do not profile.”

Muscogee County Sheriff Donna Tompkins, who was elected to the position in December, said she met with ICE officials when she first entered office and her department wasn’t asked to take any extraordinary measures.

“As a normal process, when people are brought into the jail and charged with something, we would do a history check to see if anyone else wanted them,” she said. “... If of course we were to be notified at that point that they wanted them for something, then of course we would notify them. ... It’s just the same process it’s always been; there’s nothing really that has changed.”

She said ICE officials asked that the sheriff’s office make them aware of anyone in custody that was born in another country.

“I’m not even sure if we’ve gotten to that, because we really don’t get that many,” Tompkins said. But ICE does have access to the information, which is a matter of public record, she added.

Robert Futrell, local director of Homeland Security, said his office gets about five to 10 calls a week from people wanting information about immigration paperwork and getting green cards. But his office doesn’t handle immigrations issues, he said, and he’s been referring all inquiries to the federal Homeland Security office in Atlanta.

“I’m not aware of any local direction the city has gotten as far as any direction toward deportations,” he said. “I know my office hasn’t.”

Mayor Teresa Tomlinson, the city’s public safety director, said Columbus is not a sanctuary city.

“We also do not have the resources to enforce federal immigration laws at a local level,” she said. “And so, we are not taking on the jurisdiction of the federal government … and running raids.

“However, we are, obviously, law enforcement officials here,” she explained. “And so, if somebody has a warrant out for their arrest for some other reason, and they’re placed in the system, if the federal government and the agents that are in this area, the southwest Georgia region, would like to intervene, get hold of that individual, then of course we dutifully respond, and have always done so through the years, regardless of the vacillation and political interest of immigration issues.”

‘Trying to calm people down’

The Rev. Luis Scott is pastor of Ambassadors of Christ Fellowship on Milgen Road. His church has a membership of about 200 people. It provides both English and Spanish services, with the Spanish service attracting about 60 people from such places as Mexico, Guatemala and Panama.

Scott said about 25 percent of the congregation is undocumented, and many members have expressed anxiety and fear about deportations.

“... We don’t know what’s going to happen later, but initially the focus appears to be nationally on the people who have committed crimes,” he said. “We are trying to calm people down, so that they don’t make rash or panicky decisions that could be harmful to them.”

Someone who answered the phone at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church on Torch Hill Road referred all media questions to the Catholic Diocese of Savannah. In response to questions submitted by the Ledger-Enquirer via email, Diocese Director of Communications Barbara King explained that the diocese provides services to immigrants and others regardless of their status.

Some families are looking into temporary guardianship programs and power of attorney documents to protect their families should someone in the family face deportation, according to the email. The diocese soon will have an immigration resource attorney in its Savannah office once a week to answer questions about immigration and help people with their individual cases. Church officials are “concerned that people will be taken advantage of by ‘notaries,’ dishonest immigration consultants who charge for their services but are not licensed to provide legal help,” King explained.

“Anecdotally, and through the media, we have heard about raids in some south Georgia communities,” she wrote. “Families have been expressing to us that they are afraid for the safety of their children. There is great distress that the bread-earner of the family will be taken, leaving the rest of the family on its own. The Catholic Charities response has been to try to raise the consciousness of the injustice involved and to insure that families know their rights.”

Fears in African-American community

Also concerned about Trump’s immigration policies are black immigrants who come from African, Caribbean and Latin American countries.

Lovette Kargbo Thompson, the Atlanta organizer for the national Black Alliance for Just Immigration, is expected to be in Columbus on March 23 for a women’s history event sponsored by the Southern Anti-Racism Network, according to a news release. The event will be held 6 to 8 p.m. at the Columbus Public Library Auditorium on Macon Road.

“Lovette will speak about her work with BAJI to educate African Americans and the community at-large about detentions and deportations of people of African descent,” according to the news release. “The Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin GA houses black immigrants from the Caribbean and countries on the African continent.”

The Ledger-Enquirer tried unsuccessfully to contact Thompson. However, the newspaper did reach Benjamin Ndugga-Kabuye , a BAJI writer and researcher based in New York.

“What has happened is that this new administration has put together a set of executive orders, which have been revised recently after some court rulings and opposition to them,” he said. “And essentially what they’re doing is expanding on an infrastructure that has been built over the last 20 to 30 years.”

He said a couple hundred Senegalese immigrants were deported last weekend, and there also has been an increase in Haitian immigrants being picked up in some cities.

“... What they’re doing is expanding who counts as a criminal alien deportable,” he said. “... The previous administration put together five categories of priority enforcement, and this new administration has focused on saying not only if you’re convicted of a crime, but also if you’re accused of a crime, or you’ve done anything that’s chargeable, you can be deported.

“What we have kind of pointed out is that the racism within the criminal justice system is being used to amplify the racism within the immigration enforcement system, and you can see that in its impact on black immigrants, who have the highest levels of criminal alien deportation,” he said. “What this new administration is doing is expanding what the previous administration had been doing, increasing the budget of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the budget for the border patrol, adding 5,000 new officers. And so, really, what we see is a police state at the expense of Africans Americans.”

Ndugga-Kabuye said the federal policies are playing out differently in various parts of the country.

“There are some places in the country where people have kind of these very vague sanctuary city laws, where essentially the mayors are saying they’re going to limit the amount of information they’re giving to the federal government about you so you can be deportable,” he said. “For example, Atlanta is not a sanctuary city, but New York would be.”

In New York City, the No. 1 arrest category is for people who can’t pay the train fee so they jump the gate to get on the train, he said.

“Each locality has a different methodology on how immigrants are put into the deportation machine, and the local law enforcement is kind of the first entry way,” he said. “In Atlanta, for example, we have some staff there, and we know that within the schools there are a lot of resources given to police officers ... which is different to other places.”

This story was originally published March 12, 2017 at 1:25 AM with the headline "Columbus undocumented immigrants fear raids, deportations."