Chinatown

Immigrants in Chicago's Chinatown on alert over Trump deportation plans

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Community leaders told NBC Chicago there’s a sense of heightened awareness in Chicago’s Chinatown this week over President Trump’s mass deportation plans.

“I think there’s just a lot of worries and anxieties because they don’t know what to do expect and in particular folks don’t really know what the scope of these executive orders and declarations are so there’s just a lot of questions,” said Grace Chan McKibben, who is the executive director of the Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community.

McKibben said her organization has been fielding questions from those who are undocumented about the possible enforcement actions, and the rumors they’re seeing and hearing on social media.

“There were a lot of rumors yesterday on Chinese social media about an ICE raid when it turned out that Cook County Sheriff’s Office always comes and have a presence in Chinatown Square every other Wednesday,” she said. “Folks were worried, they were saying there’s more officers, there’s going to be a raid. We saw things and it was not substantiated.”

Her organization is working with other groups to prepare and educate immigrants of their rights. The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said calls to their family support hotline for suspected ICE activity have spiked.

“We got about twice as many calls on Monday as we did the entire month of January before,” said Brandon Lee, The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Communications Director. “People are on heightened alert; people are watching out for their neighbors their communities. We’re glad people are calling the hotline.”

Trump vowed to deport undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, but some community leaders fear that everyone who is undocumented could be targeted.

“You know the Trump administration is really unpredictable. He has said lots of awful things about immigrants and he’s attacking things like birthright citizenship so that indicates that the focus is on any immigrant, who is undocumented, who doesn’t have legal status,” said Grace Pai, Asian American Advancing Justice Chicago Executive Director. “One of the important things that we’re telling people is to be vigilant.”

While it’s business as usual in Chinatown, community leaders said all they can do now is wait and see.

“No one is able to predict the future,” said Chan McKibben. “We don’t really know what’s going to happen. I think the new president has announced that there will be raids and that’s going to happen—we just don’t know what it’s going to look like.”

A ‘Know Your Rights’ training was held virtually on Tuesday with approximately 300 people in attendance. Another training is scheduled for next Tuesday.

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