For PA immigrants, uncertainty, fear and resilience are the order of the day

Decades after the fact, Patty Torres still has vivid memories of the time federal immigration agents stormed into the New York apartment where she lived as a teen, the daughter of undocumented Ecuadorean parents. “I was so scared,” she recalls. “My father was hiding in a closet.”

Today, Torres lives in Reading, a majority-Hispanic city in the Lehigh Valley, and is the co-executive director of Make the Road Pennsylvania, an immigrant advocacy group dedicated to ensuring Pennsylvanians never experience similar trauma. But with President Donald Trump threatening mass deportations and demonizing immigrants as criminals, Torres sees fear ratcheting up among the community she serves in Philadelphia, Allentown, Reading and Hazleton. “One of my friends had a panic attack recently because she couldn’t find her child’s passport,” Torres says.

Across the commonwealth, immigrant communities are worried about which of Trump’s second-term threats might translate into policies that could affect them. These include the detention of non-citizens who commit minor crimes like shoplifting, as per the federal Laken Riley Act, which President Trump is expected to sign this week; deporting entire families, including American citizens with undocumented parents; dismantling the multifaceted asylum system; and even revoking birthright citizenship, the subject of a Day 1 Trump executive order. 

The fear intensified with multiple first-week orders, which were immediately challenged by legal  groups and some states. They include measures withholding funding from so-called “sanctuary” municipalities, halting refugee programs, restricting benefits and authorizing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to enter churches, schools and other sensitive spaces for raids. A series of high-profile deportations on military jets over the past week additionally ratcheted up the tension.

These aggressive actions portend a more muscular presidency – and a very different balance of power – than seen after Trump first took office in 2017, when advocacy groups took to the streets with high-octane resistance. This time around, facing an empowered second-term president, these organizations and their political allies have prepared for a multitude of scenarios by educating immigrants about their rights, girding for legal battles and advocating for municipalities to resist cooperation with ICE.

“Marginalized and vulnerable communities see what is coming ... and they are organizing,” said Philadelphia City Councilmember Rue Landau, who, as executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations during Trump’s first term, pushed back against civil rights infringements. “There seems to be a fairly widespread fear of vengeance … The difference now is that people understand that Trump is coming in even more emboldened … He’s looking for ways in which he can put forth his agenda without as many legal consequences, or as many administrative barriers.

“Our immigrant communities are very strong and very resilient, and our legal communities are also extremely strong and talented,” added Landau, who recently introduced a City Council resolution addressing Philadelphia’s preparation for how the second Trump administration could impact the city and its residents. “I think everybody is ready for the battle.”

Along with the cities of York and Lancaster and 10 Pennsylvania counties – most of them in Southeastern Pennsylvania – Philadelphia is a formally designated sanctuary jurisdiction, meaning it has pledged to prevent its police from cooperating with ICE in immigration matters without a judicial warrant. 

Numerous Pennsylvania municipalities have also enacted – or, in the case of cities like York, are in the process of trying to enact – a Trust Act, a similar measure that aims to maintain trust between residents and law enforcement by discouraging communication between police and ICE. 

In addition, seven Pennsylvania municipalities have been certified as “welcoming” by Welcoming America, a network of communities that demonstrate policies promoting immigrant inclusion, such as making official services linguistically accessible. These municipalities include the cities of Erie, Lancaster, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, along with Allegheny County and the boroughs of State College and Dormont, a Pittsburgh suburb.

Many advocates fear these designations aren’t comprehensive enough to protect the most vulnerable immigrants from worst-case scenarios. Last month, activists marched outside Philadelphia’s City Hall, urging the outgoing Biden administration to dismantle detention and deportation infrastructure. Advocates have also called on Mayor Cherelle Parker to strengthen the city’s current sanctuary protections.

The term “sanctuary city” “is utterly misleading and gives a false sense of security,” said Jasmine Rivera, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigrant Coalition. “It doesn’t prevent detention and deportation; it just makes ICE’s work harder.” Likewise, a Trust Act “is better than nothing,” she says. Neither measure is a true bulwark against the eventualities that keep her up at night.

She worries, for example, about the fate of the temporary protected status program that shelters people from conflict-ridden nations like Afghanistan, Haiti, Ukraine and Syria. (Humanitarian parole, a similar program, is already suspended via executive order.) “We could see those programs ended overnight, and now you have hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians… (who) become undocumented overnight,” Rivera said. “And the federal government has information on where they live and work.

“Obviously, we’re going to see the Trump administration start with the undocumented community,” she added. “But we know that they’re not going to stop there.”

Witness the push to end birthright citizenship, the constitutional right to American citizenship granted to any child born here. On “Meet the Press” last month, Trump stunned many by declaring, “We’ve got to end it,” and following up with a legally problematic executive order (since birthright citizenship is enshrined in the Constitution, overturning it would actually require a new amendment).

These measures could significantly impact the commonwealth’s foreign-born population – and, crucially, its workforce, which is already strained by shortages. While immigrants constitute just 7% of the commonwealth’s population, they make up nearly 10% of its labor force and 14% of its entrepreneurs, and contribute some $13 billion in annual taxes.

In the state’s more urbanized corners, newcomers are even more visible: Philadelphia’s population is 15% foreign-born, and cities with large Hispanic populations – including Lancaster, Reading and Allentown – attract a growing number of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Mexico, India, China and Vietnam are among the most common countries of origin statewide, but Pennsylvania also has sizable communities from the Middle East, Africa and Ukraine.

Numbers of undocumented immigrants are harder to pin down, but Torres estimates that 160,000 foreign-born people are living in Pennsylvania without legal status, roughly 45,000 of them in Philadelphia. Her organization, Make The Road PA, is promoting the expansion of the Trust Act, “so the local sheriffs, if they have an (ICE) detainer inquiry, can choose to say, ‘This is not in our purview. We’re letting this person go,’” Torres said.

Beyond immigration matters, she explained, trust between law enforcement and locals is critical to public safety. “Immigrant communities, documented or undocumented, need to know that if there’s domestic violence, if they need support, they can call 911 – that a police officer isn’t going to come and ask for their status or notify ICE.”

To help its constituents feel secure, Make The Road PA launched a campaign to educate immigrant communities on various legalities. This includes hosting workshops, publishing the “Know Your Rights Family Defense Manual,” and distributing wallet cards that remind people about their constitutional rights regarding domestic privacy and property, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, and more. Torres also advocates for a statewide “safe zone” policy prohibiting ICE from entering schools, offices and other public places.

In Philadelphia, The Welcoming Center, a resource hub for immigrants, is taking similar measures. It distributes fact sheets about rights and resources, invites lawyers to speak and hosts networking events so immigrants can pool resources.

According to Elizabeth Jones, the organization’s chief program officer, feeling secure amid the uncertainty “is about relationship-building – knowing who you can call on,” she said. “There’s a lot of confidence: ‘We’re here, and we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.’ That’s facilitated by the connection and support that the community provides to one another.”

State Rep. Lindsay Powell, a Pittsburgh Democrat, said the House Latino Caucus – of which she is the secretary – is supporting a proposal to create a state ID for all residents, regardless of status. The bill, introduced by Powell’s colleague, state Rep. Danilo Burgos, “doesn’t directly identify people as undocumented, but allows them to be part of the community and the workforce, get out of hiding,” Powell said.

Such an ID would have little power against, say, mass detention orders – but Powell, like everyone interviewed for this story, emphasized that it is impossible to know exactly how the Trump administration’s crackdown will evolve, given the complex issues at stake – and the mounting legal challenges.

“Campaigns have a tendency to share a lot of rhetoric that doesn’t come to pass,” noted Lancaster City Councilmember Jaime Arroyo, a Democrat who is running to become the city’s first Hispanic mayor. “I’m hopeful that folks will realize how important immigrants and new citizens are to our country. Hopefully, that starts to settle in, and we don’t see some of the actions actually play out.”

As a certified welcoming city, Lancaster does not ask people for their immigration status in situations where it’s not relevant, Arroyo said. “I’m committed to continuing to advocate for some of our most vulnerable residents that can be affected by this, and many of our elected officials here are as well.” Still, he added, “Lancaster has to abide by state and federal law.” 

In the Capital Region, Dauphin County Commission Chair Justin Douglas said ICE has contacted local prisons about using facilities for temporary detentions – and he suspects other counties have fielded similar requests. “Our prison administration will do their due diligence ... and will have a decision to make, but I will be against any agreement with ICE,” Douglas said. “It’s my understanding that detention in the Dauphin County prison is through the judicial system … The idea of people contributing to our society, often working jobs that others won’t work, being pulled from their houses…That’s not something I’m able to support.”

On a practical level, Douglas said, widespread detentions would be extremely costly and dramatically increase the administrative workload, “while they’re also talking about downsizing government,” he said, referring to Trump’s newly christened federal Department of Government Efficiency. The commissioner also cited the potential for humanitarian violations and the liability that wrongful detentions could pose to municipalities.

Such concerns feel far away in Erie, according to the city’s immigrant and refugee liaison, Saeed Taraky. That’s because “we don’t have illegal immigrants,” said Taraky, explaining that Erie is too small and remote to be a migrant destination. “Everyone came here through a process.”

Taraky emigrated from Afghanistan in 2022, thanks to a visa he earned by helping the U.S. military. He is also president of the 200-family Afghan Community of Erie. “We have all the documents that the U.S. government provided to us,” he said, describing the extensive screenings he and his neighbors underwent. “We’ve heard about what happened in the past when (Trump) was president, but honestly, I don’t see any concern among the Muslims here.”

Other new Pennsylvanians, like Dewi Indrawati, simply don’t worry about things they can’t control. A year and a half ago, she came from Indonesia on a student visa with her husband and now-8-year-old daughter; the family settled in South Philadelphia.

“I feel safe because I’ve followed the law,” said Indrawati, who has filed an asylum application. “I pay tax. I continue my education here.” While her husband works as a sushi chef at Reading Terminal Market, Indrawati studies at the Community College of Philadelphia, works at a laundromat and prepares taxes at H&R Block.

Since the election, she has felt increased tension in her interactions with laundry customers, some of whom have talked pointedly about Trump and asked her if she pays taxes. But she doesn’t dwell on it. “America is a good and powerful country because it’s a melting pot,” she said. “I have a good life here.”