For immigrant advocates, legal services and rights groups, the threat of anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislation is not new. Earlier this year, the Biden Administration was sued by several groups, including the National Immigrant Justice Center and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for a executive order which severely restricted asylum applications at the US-Mexico border. President-elect Donald Trump’s first term has been defined by tough immigration tactics, including family separation and a travel ban which banned people from some predominantly Muslim countries from entering the US

“It’s been four long years. It’s been a very long eight years,” says Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

But 2025 will bring a marked escalation for these groups and the people they serve. With Trump’s return to office looms the promise of a deep review of the country’s immigration policies, which could include mass deportations, workplace raids, expanding the border wall, bringing back the “Remain in Mexico” policy (which requires migrants who have crossed into the US through the southern border to remain in Mexico during asylum cases). were heard) and ending birthright citizenship, or the longstanding principle that US-born children are granted citizenship.

Read more: What Donald Trump’s win means for immigration

“What we expect is drastic changes announced immediately,” says Jennifer Babaie, director of advocacy and legal services at the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which provides free and low-cost legal services to migrants and refugees.

Here are some ways Babaie, Zwick and immigrant advocates across the country are preparing for Trump’s return to power.

“Know Your Rights”

Both in the U.S. and at the Tijuana shelters, immigration advocates have already given groups “Know Your Rights” presentations that help migrants understand what is expected of them by border officials, including what will happen in credible fear interviews.

When asylum seekers enter the United States, they are referred to US border officials who conduct a credible fear interview (CFI), in which the official determines whether the migrant seeking asylum has a “credible fear” of returning to their country of origin.

Babaie says Las Americas is working to expand these presentations to broader groups and include more information not just for those at the border who want to enter the country, but also for those already inside who are at risk of deportation.

“What we incorporate into these presentations is safety planning,” she said. “Your family should know their status. Everyone should know where the documents are. You need to know if someone is being picked up, who your emergency contact is, and how your kids know who to update.”

For Melissa Shepard, managing attorney at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), her team has similar priorities. Sheperd oversees ImmDef’s welcome project in San Diego and says one thing her team is doing is transferring their rights presentations to their website and translating them into more languages ​​— including more indigenous languages – to reach wider immigrant communities.

Community organization

Babaie says this is the time for communities to come together, not despite the fear of a second Trump administration, but because of it.

“(The community) is our only way to survive,” she says. “Or else we write a million reports. If no one reads them, no one cares. And then, that’s how we get used to losing our rights.”

According to Norma Chávez-Peterson, executive director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, this means going beyond just informing immigrants and their families of their rights.

“It’s really going to take everybody, immigrant rights organizations, local government, state government, anybody, everybody and their mother who cares and values ​​and wants to protect immigrants,” Chávez-Peterson said. She and her ACLU affiliate met with various local and state officials, including the California attorney general and governor’s offices. California Governor Gavin Newsom has already announced one special session on Nov. 7, which will be in part to strengthen resources for immigrant families. Chávez-Peterson sees San Diego as a model for other border cities to look to for this kind of multi-level cooperation.

Chávez-Peterson also pointed out that as an immigrant herself, she sees how immigrants in the country feel like they “have a huge target on their backs” and operate out of fear. If threatened, immigrants may not immediately go to the ACLU for help, but rather to their places of trust, including their faith community, social workers, their teachers, their schools. So Chávez-Peterson says it’s up to groups like hers to get information out there. “If ICE goes to look for someone at a school, how do we make sure those schools have a policy that they can’t share parents’ information?” she says.

This also means that groups across the country have already started sharing information with each other. Both Babaie and Chávez-Peterson have recently attended panels, trainings and conferences with other advocacy and legal groups, and say they are important for communicating policies that are actually being implemented so they can be used immediately.

“(During the first Trump Administration), policies were implemented without any announcement,” Babaie said. “And then the only way attorneys knew exactly what was going on was through word of mouth, not through FOIA or announcements from the administration.”

Streamline services

Although Trump has clarified some of his potential policy initiatives, immigrant advocates are also preparing to expect the unexpected.

Part of that preparation for Chávez-Peterson includes revitalization San Diego Rapid Response Networkwhich includes a hotline, free deportation legal defense and other nonprofit organizations, all brought together in collaboration to help families who are caught in the deportation crisis.

“When the family is in crisis, the last thing you want to do is give them a list of phone numbers to call and be transferred from one organization to another,” she says.

Babaie also points out that this means preparing the teams—teams already exhausted by the legal battles of the past eight years—for the battles ahead.

“We’re all going to have to move to a more procedural and detail-oriented way of working, because the last time we had a Trump presidency, we got denials because of a space that was left blank on a form,” he said. she said.

Still, the most important message, she says, is to let both immigrant communities and the government know that groups like Las Americas are there and that they’re ready: “Part of our obligation is to maintain that we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing . do. And no matter what you throw at us, we’re going to come back and find a way to continue to use our legal practice to defend these people.”

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