The deadly terrorist attacks of 2001 made a wounded animal of the United States of America: flailing, desperate and angry. In the years after Islamic extremists killed thousands in New York and Washington, the federal government subjected great numbers of foreign-born residents to governmental profiling.
In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security absorbed the Immigration and Nationalization Service and took over its functions. The newly formed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was tasked with rounding up unauthorized residents as well as legal residents who had criminal records. The number of deportations—the technical term since 1997 is removals—rose sharply in the ’00’s.
This was seen by some as a necessary campaign to rid the country of potential terrorists, and by others as a terrorism campaign in and of itself. For millions of Latin Americans living in the U.S., ICE quickly became a fearsome force. In the years following its formation, immigration enforcement agents made their presence felt in communities with significant immigrant populations, including Trenton and Princeton. Maria “Charo” Juega, of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, described those days in an interview:
“We started seeing immigration agents coming around to pick up men—particularly men—in home raids at the crack of dawn, and take them away in front of their children and wives,” she said. “It felt like, Hello? Are we in the United States? What’s going on here? Are these criminals? Why is this happening?
“They went after folks who may have had a deportation order going back 10 years or so, or because they didn’t show up in court at some point. They not only picked up the guy (they were after) but they also picked up every male who was in the home. They called them collateral detainees.
“They were just cruising around Trenton and Princeton in vans, picking up people indiscriminately. It was sheer terror—leaving behind families without their breadwinners all of a sudden. It was very bad.”
The Latin American Task Force, an informal coalition of people and agencies that served the immigrant community in and around Princeton, was watching this happen. As ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations ramped up, the task force’s members sensed a need to create a more formal organization that could address what was going on, one that would be able to raise money to support its advocacy efforts.
So in 2004, LALDEF was formed, with Juega as chair. Other founders included Anne Reeves, Ryan Lillienthal, Ivonne Clark, Karen Longo-Baldwin, Judith Weiss, Ann Yasuhara and Steve Traylor. Yasuhara and Traylor have both passed away in 2015.
Juega was born in 1949 in Bilbao, in the Basque Country of Spain, but grew up in Madrid. She spent three years in Canada while her father served in a diplomatic role in Montréal before returning to Spain.
Later, having trained and worked in Spain’s tourism industry, she took an opportunity to transfer to a New York-based tour agency, settling in Princeton in 1986. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from The College of New Jersey in 1992 and changed careers, becoming a personal investment adviser for companies like Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo. She retired in 2011 to become LALDEF’s executive director.
In its first five years, LALDEF focused largely on advocacy, finding people legal assistance and training them about their rights while working to raise consciousness among policymakers about the issues facing area immigrants. As it became clear that immigration laws weren’t going to change anytime soon, the board determined that it needed to provide services as well.
Today LALDEF is based at 669 Chambers Street in Trenton, at the Casa de Bienvenida, or Welcome House, which it opened in 2013. The Welcome House is open six days a week to provide the immigrant community with services: help with everything from completing forms to negotiating with landlords to talking to police or school principals. “Because of the language barrier, it’s very difficult for these families to understand what’s expected and communicate their needs,” Juega said.
They provide adult education classes, where volunteers teach English as well as computer skills, health literacy and financial literacy. And three years ago they began a youth-mentoring program called Futuro, designed to help high school juniors graduate and make the transition to higher education programs.
LALDEF also offers legal immigration services, helping those who are already permanent residents attain U.S. citizenship. “If they’re in an irregular situation, we try to find a way to get them a work permit,” Juega said. “Unfortunately, given the current legislative framework, it’s very difficult to do that.”
One of LALDEF’s most important initiatives has been the Mercer County Community ID Cards. The agency offers them to immigrants who are unable to obtain official identification, such as a driver license. The cards have no legal meaning, but without them, many immigrants would be walking around with no ID at all. Among other things, the cards help them overcome the language barrier when talking to police or hospital staff. LALDEF lists six Mercer municipalities that accept them, including Princeton.
Leticia Fraga is the recently named chair of LALDEF, having served on the board for three years. She has resided in Princeton since moving here from Seattle with her husband, Steven Nadler, 16 years ago. Fraga, who is also on the board of the Princeton YWCA and is vice-chair of the Princeton Human Services Commission, immigrated from Baja California as a child.
“To get a license in Washington State, one just has to prove identity and prove that they are residents of the state. (They don’t need) six points like here in New Jersey,” she said. “It limits people from being able to live outside where they work.”
Juega said the percentage of U.S. citizens applying for the cards has risen from 4 percent when they started offering it to nearly 20 percent today. “Clearly, there is a huge population of U.S. citizens who are out there on the margins, unable to get official ID,” she said.
Where things are headed
ICE formally changed its immigration enforcement policies in 2011, prioritizing removal of recent border crossers and immigrants believed to pose public safety risks over those who have overstayed visas and other long-term unauthorized residents who have never been ordered removed.
Juega confirms that locally, immigration enforcement hasn’t been as aggressive in recent years, alleviating some fear in the immigrant community. The U.S. continues to remove undocumented citizens at a high rate, but a significant number of removals occur at the borders; “interior removals” from places like Mercer County have fallen from a peak of 188,422 in 2011 to 102,224 in 2014, according to the Cato Institute.
But Juega, Fraga and others are still frustrated at the lack of progress being made at the legislative level. They won’t rest until state legislatures and Congress change state and federal laws to acknowledge the nation’s 11 million undocumented residents, many of whom have spent years as productive members of society.
“The system itself is not functioning—not addressing the reality,” Juega said. “And people are starting to break the law because there’s no other way to live. You need to change the laws. And you need to address the population that is already here and part of the community where they live.”
President Barack Obama has issued executive orders designed to provide relief to unauthorized residents, but a federal judge in Texas has blocked several of them, at least temporarily. The Deferred Action for Parental Accountability, or DAPA, which would have offered temporary relief to undocumented parents of legal permanent resident children, has been halted by the court order. The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which offers relief for some undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, is still in effect, but the court order has also prevented an expanded DACA from going into effect.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Department of Justice’s appeal in May, and some believe a Supreme Court showdown is in the cards for 2016.
The meaning of sanctuary
Princeton was in the news recently because of a July 1 killing that took place across the country. A Mexican man who according to ICE had been removed from the U.S. five times is accused in the shooting death of a woman in San Francisco.
The death shone a spotlight on San Francisco’s status as a “sanctuary city,” a place where local authorities have pledged not to help enforce federal immigration laws. Princeton has also referred to itself as a sanctuary city, as has Trenton.
In light of the shooting and the accused’s history of reentry, sanctuary cities have come under fire from critics who support proactive immigration enforcement. But speaking to reporters on July 13, Mayor Liz Lempert reasserted Princeton’s sanctuary city status.
Interestingly, there’s nothing formal about the designation. There’s no association of sanctuary cities, nor even a trustworthy list of places so designated. There’s an element of Underground Railroad to it.
While Juega and Fraga appreciate the intent of sanctuary cities, they are a little uncomfortable about the idea, particularly about the word sanctuary.
“I personally dislike the term sanctuary city,” Juega said. “I think it’s meant to stigmatize, rather than paint a positive picture, which is I think what’s intended by cities that welcome their immigrant population.
“It’s not about providing shelter, but about creating a more inclusive community. When it’s painted as providing shelter to folks who are running away from the law, which is what sanctuary connotes, I think we’re distorting the picture of what’s really being attempted here.”
Life in these United States
So what is the reality? Who are the people being helped by LALDEF and other organizations, like the Princeton YWCA? How do the thousands of undocumented residents of Mercer County, many of whom hail from Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean, make it from day to day?
In two separate interviews, the Princeton Echo asked Juega and Fraga to help us answer that question. Here, in their words, is just some of what they told us about the life of today’s immigrants— using their own experiences to provide context.
Leticia Fraga
We lived in Mexico, but my dad had a business on the U.S. side. In 1970, his business wasn’t doing well, so we came here temporarily, to make some money. I remember all 10 of us, my parents and seven siblings, coming in a stationwagon.
We had family that had already emigrated to Washington State, so we had a place to go. We just had a few belongings when we came—we weren’t planning to stay long. My dad is U.S. born, so we were fortunate, we had that option.
None of us spoke English except for my dad. Most people assumed that because we didn’t speak English, we didn’t have legal status, so we were treated like that. I could have flashed my green card and said, “No, you’re wrong, we’re different.” But I can honestly tell you that we were not. Our family came here for the very same reasons as many other families, to provide a better life for their children.
Maria Juega
I was very fortunate because I already spoke English. I had a job offer to come here, so I had certain skills with which I could secure a job offer and an employer willing to sponsor me. That’s not something that a farmer from a remote rural area in Guatemala is going to get. He doesn’t have the connections, he doesn’t have the skills and there’s no visa, no green card for agricultural workers.
Leticia Fraga
Many of the families I grew up knowing were migrant workers that followed the crops. We would get up before daybreak to pick whatever crop happened to be in season. In Washington, that was asparagus and apples and cherries. We would do that every day, even the weekends in the summer, and we would go in the morning before school and go back after school to go work some more.
I didn’t consider it a hardship at the time, and even today I don’t. It’s just what we did. Many immigrants today do that because we have that work ethic instilled in us, regardless of our immigration status.
Maria Juega
There’s a temporary permit that allows you to work for nine months, and then you have to go back to your country. And there’s only 66,000 of these temporary permits for agricultural workers that are issued every year nationwide. Employers—farmers and landscapers—need millions of these folks, but only 66,000 can do this legally, and only for nine months of the year.
We need to raise the numbers for temporary workers like these to match the demand. And we need to make it easier to get these permits, because it is very onerous—for the employer—to go through this process, and many give up.
Leticia Fraga
After I moved here from Seattle, it took me about 10 years to decide that Princeton was my home. When I felt that I wasn’t part of the community, it wasn’t because the community itself wasn’t welcoming. It was me. It was because of my childhood experience of not feeling welcome because I didn’t know the language. I decided the same thing was going to happen in the new community.
I encourage new families to get involved early on, to learn the language, because the only way that they’re going to advocate for themselves and for their children is by learning the language.
Maria Juega
Trenton actually had a Welcome House of sorts, called the International Institute, at the beginning of the 20th century. There is a tradition of doing something like this. New York and other big cities worked to embrace immigrants and help them integrate into society. There’s nothing new about what we’re doing. It’s been around a long time and exists in other places.
Leticia Fraga
I can still picture the faces of the individuals who helped us and made a difference in our lives. When we first moved to Washington, they didn’t have the ESL programs that schools do now.
I would get together with a tutor every day for one hour to learn English, but the rest of school was total immersion. That tutor and others helped us do what we couldn’t have done on our own.
Whether you realize it or not, even just holding out your hand and welcoming one person is going to make a difference. I know that it did for me.
Maria Juega
Like most, the unauthorized immigrants in Princeton are very poor people. I think if I were to define what does it mean to be poor, it means you have no control over your life. These folks are in survival mode. Survival mode means you’re consumed with the pressure to make it to the end of the day, perhaps make it to the end of tomorrow. Your mind cannot focus beyond that. Thinking about what’s going to happen next year is outside of your ability to consider.
You need to pay the rent and you need to feed your family or yourself. You need to cover your basic necessities. And these folks carry an additional weight in that they typically have a family back home that they have to worry about. They have elderly parents, they have children back home depending on them. They need to send part of their meager income home. These people are typically working 10-to-12 hour days six, if not seven, days a week.
They have very little free time. If they have children here, these children usually spend a lot of time by themselves, unsupervised, or in the care of folks who may not necessarily be good child-care providers. But the parents need to work. They have to leave them somewhere.
Typically, families share a house or apartment. You might have mom, dad and two to three kids living in one room. There’s all the mental health pressures that you can imagine as a result of that: serious depression, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse, you name it. Those are factors that are unfortunately overrepresented in this population. It’s a struggle for survival. That’s their life.
What doesn’t go away is that psychological pressure of knowing you’re living in an unending state of being marginalized as a person. You’re not authorized to work, so your work options are very limited. You can’t drive. If you lose your job, you can’t get unemployment. You can’t get health care. It’s very difficult to survive.
Leticia Fraga
Everybody knows of someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and they ended up getting deported. I actually know of a young man whose family has been living here for close to 20 years, they were in the process but didn’t yet have legal status, or he didn’t. He was driving on I-95 when he was stopped by state police, they said because his license plate was dirty.
He ended up being deported. And for nothing. It was not really a moving violation. He didn’t have a driver’s license because he can’t get a driver’s license yet, but he had to go work. And now their family’s torn apart. Some of the family members were born here, others are still waiting their turn so they can adjust their status. I have family members that have applied and they’re still waiting for their visa, and this is close to 17 years. They’re still waiting.
People ask, “Why can’t they just immigrate legally?” Well, I can tell you, people are trying.
Maria Juega
What’s good about Princeton is that many resources are readily available to folks who cannot drive because they don’t have driver’s licenses, can’t afford to buy a car much less pay car insurance, so they’re dependent on public transportation. They can walk to buy groceries, they can walk to the Laundromat, they can walk to school, and that makes it very convenient. The schools in Princeton are a big attraction.
But it’s not cheap living in Princeton, even in so-called affordable housing units. Princeton is undergoing what I think is an inevitable gentrification process that will eventually make it totally prohibitive for these families to remain in town. I just don’t see how that can be stopped. The population is moving to more affordable areas of the county such as Hamilton, or Lawrence, or even Trenton.
Now, Trenton has a ways to go, but I think that in the case of the Chambersburg neighborhood, we’re seeing a traditional American Dream pattern of upward mobility. We have a large Guatemalan population here, which creates a lot of mutual support within the community. They’ve built an enclave that is thriving and clearly improving the community.
There are cultural classes and what have you, but that is an inevitable part of the process of change. The Italians were here and they displaced the Germans, the Germans displaced whomever. It’s relatively healthy. It’s not like anyone pushed the Italians out. They moved on—moved up. It’s good that there’s another group of people willing to move in and bring things back up.
Leticia Fraga
I remember when my twin boys started elementary school, we had a Back to School night where PTO dues were to be paid. They had estimated it would cost about $150 to provide the extra enrichment programs for kids. For many families, especially if we’re saying $150 per kid, that’s out of reach.
When parents paid these dues on Back to School night, their children would get a sweatshirt which was then worn on Spirit Day. So it very obvious which families had contributed and which families had not.
More recently, the decision was made to have a drive for everyone to give what they could. I know for a fact that many families who felt they could not give in the past were giving envelopes with dollar bills or coins. We raised more funds than in previous years by doing it this way, and raised enough so that every child was able to get a sweatshirt.
Sometimes decisions are made that are not always taking into consideration what other families may be able to do. My family has had a great experience in the school district. We’re very happy with the education my kids are receiving and the experiences. I just want all the children to have that positive experience.
Maria Juega
It’s become hugely expensive now to cross the border. It can be done, but you’ve got to pay three, five, ten thousand dollars to a human trafficker. So what we’ve done is feed this human trafficking market, deliver these people to mafias to keep coming here. And they will keep coming here, because we need them, we entice them with jobs, and because things are very bad in their countries due to violence and lack of economic opportunities. The flow will continue to come, even though it has decreased significantly in the case of Mexico, but they’ll continue to come from places that continue to be very dysfunctional.
Growth in this country is driven primarily by immigrants. They’re the ones having the most children. These kids are the future of America, whether we like it or not. So if we’re bottling them up in these immigrant ghettoes, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.
People question why they should pay for these kids’ education, why they should pay for these kids’ health care — hey, they’re the future of this country! I didn’t have any children. Who’s going to pay for my retirement and my Medicare? I’m still working, but once I stop working, someone has to kick into the system for me, and it’s these kids.
Leticia Fraga
It’s an inspiration to me to think that through my volunteer work, I don’t just hope but I know that I am making a difference. It is very rewarding to think I can be part of the effort to make my community more inclusive.
Maria Juega
I am looking for a successor. Someone with a passion to help this community, who understands their needs and wants to take over an organization that has a very good reputation, that takes pride in serving the community and working to empower the community. We’re not about handouts. We’re about teaching folks how to fish and how to thrive. This is a resilient, hardworking, motivated community. If they’re shown the way, they’ll do what they need to do.
Much more information on the services provided by LALDEF can be found online at laldef.org.
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