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San Juan, Porerto Rico – Pastor Nilka Marrero will slam his hand on the table, raised his voice and, if necessary, shakes his parishioners while playing the role of a federal agent.
Many of her parishioners are undocumented immigrants, and she thinks that role play with them can prepare them for the threat of arrest while the authorities intensify immigration raids on a scale ever seen in Puerto Rico.
“They appear and stop people,” said Marrero.
For decades, undocumented immigrants live on American territory without fear of arrest. They are authorized to open bank accounts and obtain a special driving license. Many have felt safe enough to open their own companies.
Then, on January 26, large -scale arrests began.
US immigration and the application of customs have descended in a well-known Dominican community as a sign of a new policy by US President Donald Trump, who is committed to expelling millions of people who have entered the United States illegally.
The arrests have angry the Puerto Rican officials and civil leaders who have created programs to help undocumented immigrants from the island, many of whom are from the Dominican Republic.
Arrests and questions
It is estimated that 55,000 Dominicans live in Puerto Rico, although some experts think that the number could be even higher. We do not know how undocid, although some 20,000 have the special driving license.
More than 200 people have been arrested since January 26, almost all men. Among the arrested, 149 are Dominicans, according to Data Ice, provided the Associated Press.
Sandra Colón, spokesperson for the American Department of Internal Security of Puerto Rico, said that the agency focuses on those who have a criminal record or who have received a final court decision that they were to leave the country. But she said that she had not immediately available how many people arrested have judicial lockers.
Annette Martínez, director of the Aclu of Puerto Rico, said that he was unknown where those arrested were taken or if they were expelled. “We are concerned about the different methods that ice that ice uses for detention,” she said.
A park has become silent
A recent morning in the capital of Puerto Rico, the speakers of a hair salon played an English tutorial while a few Dominican migrants student to become American citizens listened to closely.
The company is faced with a park where the Dominican community has gathered for a long time. It is now mainly silent and empty. No more animated merengue music, excited chatter, slap of dominoes.
An undocumented migrant who asked to be identified only by his nickname, “the fisherman”, because he feared compromising his case before a federal court, said that he had been arrested near the park.
He had illegally entered Porto Rico in 2014 to seek more income because his wife at home had breast cancer and he could not afford his treatment as a fisherman in the Dominican coastal city of Samaná.
“I needed to earn a living,” he said.
His wife died, but the man decided to stay in Puerto Rico. Her son also came to the island. The fisherman first worked in construction, but after falling from one floor to the second floor and brié his basin, he resumed fishing once he healed.
He sold fish to the park until January 26th. That day, he was sitting in a van while his son bought them lunch.
“Three agents withdrew me,” he recalls.
They arrested seven people at that time, including his son.
The man said they were sleeping on the ground from several prisons and had only received bread and water when they were transferred to the Puerto Rican city of Aguadilla, then Miami and finally Texas.
The authorities referred the man to Puerto Rico for legal proceedings, where he remains on deposit with an ankle instructor. Her son is in a Miami prison.
“We are torn apart,” he said then that his voice was cracked.
A support swell
Each day, Marrero keeps an eye on white vans that could circulate near his church.
Inside, more than a dozen volunteers fall back from given clothes and prepare free meals for undocumented immigrants who are too afraid to leave their homes.
“They panic,” said José Rodríguez, president of the Dominican Committee on Human Rights. “They are afraid to go out; They are afraid of taking their children to school. ”
In February, the Puerto Rico education department noted that schools with a high number of Dominican students experienced absent rates of up to 70%. Officials have since ordered school directors to keep their doors closed and not to open them to federal agents unless they have a mandate.
The mayor of San Juan, Miguel Romero, said that the municipal police did not work or do not help federal agents, and that the city offers legal aid and another assistance.
Meanwhile, Julio Roldán Concepción, mayor of Aguadilla, a northwest coastal city where many undocumented migrants arrive by boat, calls for empathy.
“Any undocumented migrant can come to the town hall if he needs help,” he said. “I’m not going to ask to see papers to give them. … We are all brothers here.”
Porto Rico health sector officials also offered to help undocumented migrants. Carlos Díaz Velez, president of the Association of Medical Surgeons, announced that undocumented migrants would receive online medical care “in the light of raids that have condemned thousands of immigrants to isolation”.
Governor Jenniffer González, a Republican who supports Trump, initially said that the president’s initiative would not affect immigrants to Puerto Rico. Since then, she said that the island “could not afford” to ignore Trump’s directives on migrant arrests, noting that federal funds are threatened.
Shortly after the arrests of January, the Episcopalian church of Puerto Rico announced a new program which offers migrants food as well as legal, psychological and spiritual aid. More than 100 people asked for help, said Mgr Rafael Morales Maldonado.
“The Church will never be against a law, but it will oppose its effects,” he said.
“An honorable and dignified return”
Federal agents initially targeted neighborhoods in San Juan, but they have since turned through the island and in the work sites, said Rodríguez.
A man who refused to be identified because his trial is underway, said that he was arrested on February 26. He arrived for the first time in Puerto Rico in 2003 but was arrested after reaching the shore. After being expelled, he tried again in February 2007. He obtained a construction job and then opened his own business.
“I never felt dangerous,” he said.
But one afternoon, a woman he worked with the house complained about his work. The next day, federal agents arrested him as well as his employees as soon as they arrived on the site. It was then that he discovered that the woman had taken a photo of her van and reported it.
“How can people want to do so many injuries?” He said.
His lawyer said he had a hearing date on April 1. The man said he applied for years ago at the American residence but had never received an answer. His wife is a naturalized American citizen and his daughter lives legally in Orlando, Florida.
While the arrests continue, Marrero, the pastor, continues to educate undocumented migrants. If they have children born in Puerto Rico, she urges to ensure that passports and childcare papers in order and at hand.
She says she asks them to repeat the answers they should give to the agents according to what they have been told, noting that many do not know how to read or write or hurt.
“We have prepared them for an honorable and worthy return,” she said.
