Across Georgia and the nation, uncertainty shadows the lives of immigrants as shifting rules, sudden raids and detention overcrowding disrupt daily life, leaving many unsure whether tomorrow brings a typical day or will bring the sudden disappearance of everything they’ve worked for.
Laine Posel, an immigration attorney in the Atlanta area, emphasizes that the most pressing issue concerning immigrants in the United States is the day-to-day uncertainty and disruption of their lives. Sudden rule changes, revoked work permits and the possibility of being torn away from family members are just some of the troubles immigrants –regardless of background– face today.
“The biggest challenge is the uncertainty,” Posel said. “Nobody knows what tomorrow is going to bring for them. Nobody feels safe. Nobody knows if their work permission is going to be continued, if it’s going to be revoked, if they can stay. So a lot of immigrants are just living in a life of uncertainty.”
In one local case, federal agents went to a Kirkwood home where resident Lanni Hill had offered housing to a man who had entered the U.S. legally and was staying on a work permit while applying for asylum. He also had a legitimate Social Security Number. Hill identifies the man by the alias Jesus, as using his real name could compromise his security. Hill, a volunteer with Team Libertad, a non-profit organization that helps asylum-seekers in Georgia, said agents entered her home at 8 a.m. and handcuffed Jesus without giving him a chance to get fully dressed.
“He [told me he] had signed a piece of paper agreeing that he would present himself to ICE twice a month,” Hill said. “He also had agreed [that] up to twice a month they might stop by and just make sure he’s at the house where he says he is. He did not realize that opening the door to them would mean that they could come in and not even wait for him to get dressed before handcuffing him. They just paraded him off the front porch with his t-shirt hanging around his neck like a noose and his sleeping shorts on, handcuffed behind his back.
Hill said many who help migrants see that arrests and raids are fast and chaotic, as in her case, when agents denied Jesus the decency to fully dress after changing out of his sleepwear before being detained. She said the arrest left her shaken, even though she had seen a lack of compassion in past experiences with federal agents detaining immigrants she hosted.
“I was somewhat prepared for this, so it didn’t traumatize me quite as much as if it had happened without any warning,” Hill said. “I was prepared for how ruthless [detainments] had become. I was just taken by complete surprise because I didn’t expect them to enter my home.”
Recent changes to the immigration system have caused unprecedented disruptions and delays. These changes extend to people of all backgrounds and statuses, meaning asylum seekers and visa applicants must wait months or even years before their cases are heard.
“People’s lives are completely upended in a moment’s notice,” Posel said. “If you talk about taking away [policies], there are policies that have been in place for certain countries like Venezuela, Syria, called Temporary Protected Status, where our government temporarily protects a population that we, the United States, do not deem safe to go back to. He just canceled them without a moment’s notice. People have maybe 30 days, all of a sudden, to just leave.”
Additionally, recent Trump administration changes to the H-1B visa program mean U.S. companies that want to hire employees from other countries may have to pay $100,000 per worker. Posel said she sees the impact of such massive changes firsthand and knows the disruption they will cause.
“The fees, it’s just an unreasonable amount,” Posel said. “This is going to affect everything from small businesses, big businesses in every industry, universities, tech companies, hospitals, researchers, everywhere.”
Hill feels her experience as a trauma therapist and pastor makes her skeptical of and disappointed with the lack of moral integrity of federal agents and bystanders to such inhumanities and humiliations.
“What [the raid] does is it points out the brokenness and spiritual poverty of the immigration system, the moral poverty,” Hill said. “When people are poor, you try to help them. So it’s understanding that people who are working for immigration are missing something in their spirit, that would allow them to humiliate another human being. How hard would it have been to allow [Jesus] to put on his shirt before parading him out of the room, instead of leaving him half naked?”
Hill said she has heard from others involved in the immigration justice system that there are agents detaining people without warning, even at their assigned court hearings or other presentations.
“When they go to their court [hearing], they send them out a certain door, and there’s ICE waiting for them,” Hill said. “They just handcuff them and take them to detention. These people showed up in court like they were supposed to – people with work permits, Social Security numbers. Just sweet, hardworking people who have caused no trouble, they’re taking.”
Hill also has been a legal observer of many court hearings, and sees that as deportation cases often carry life-altering consequences, many conclude with emotional statements from detainees, who are housed in federal prisons due to overcrowding and safety concerns in detention centers. Hill said those moments show how truly desperate people feel when a judge’s decision can mean life or death.
“[The judge] asked one detainee after she said, ‘You’re being removed. Would you like to appeal it?,’” Hill said. “He knew that if he appealed, he could wait until a hearing months later, but they would keep him in detention. He said, ‘No, I don’t want to appeal anymore because I’d rather go and die in Venezuela than die here in the detention center.’”
This fear isn’t limited to homes or courtrooms; it follows people online, too. Longtime residents who once felt safe said they now delete apps and hide photos to avoid drawing attention. One Candler Park resident who asked not to be named said she has changed her habits and online presence out of fear of current news and social conditions.
“I’m not a paranoid person normally, but these are not normal times,” the resident said. “I’ve been a naturalized citizen for about, maybe over, 30 years, so technically, I’m safe. But because of what I’m seeing in the news all over the country, it has caused me to be extremely cautious.”
Posel said she sees that a majority of people targeted during immigration checks are nonwhite appearing, and this fact has sparked fear among people from other ethnicities as they go about their lives. Posel said simple incidents, such as a traffic stop, can disrupt people’s entire lives in an instant.
“People are saying it’s like the wild, wild west,” Posel said. “If you don’t look a certain way, if you don’t look like a white Anglo person, you’re just in jeopardy of either being taken off the streets or being asked your status. For the first time, people feel like they need to carry documents with them, just to show [they’re] American.”
The fear and cruelty of the immigration system today extends even to children, leaving lasting scars on families. Hill said this issue does not get as much attention as it should, and it may be even more important for the future of the nation.
“Who knows what could have happened if someone had taken baby Jesus away from Mary and Joseph, they immigrated to Egypt many years ago” Hill said. “[That’s] what we do to babies here: when they cross the border, they’re taken from their parents. There are still close to 1,500 babies or children who are missing, that were kidnapped from their parents, and we don’t have any record of what happened.”
For many, the issue has no clear end in sight. The resident believes the issue is no longer just politics; it’s about empathy and humanity.
“Everyone’s disgusted,” the resident said. “Everyone – I mean everyone – is just sickened. We’re all just human. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if you’re a criminal; just have a little bit of decency [in] how you treat people. And what we’re seeing in this country with the ICE arrests — there’s no decency.”
