Under a new administration, Houston’s immigrant rights groups brace for drastic policy change
Rose Escobar woke up Wednesday in shock that the man who deported her husband would soon be back in office. "I just feel like people forgot what happened," Escobar said.
Escobar and her husband Jose's lives were upended in 2017 after Jose was one of the first people targeted for deportation under President Donald Trump. After a routine immigration check-in, Jose was deported to his home country, El Salvador. He was only able to return to Houston after more than two years of constant advocacy. Jose reunited with Rose and their children Walter and Carmen in 2019. He became a U.S. citizen in 2023.
Immigrant rights groups in Houston are now bracing for the second Trump presidency, where he has promised even more extreme immigration policies this time around, including mass deportations and ending birthright citizenship. His reelection has brought back the memories of his first term, when immigrant communities barely had time to react to one policy before another was announced.
Now advocates fear this next wave of immigration policies will rip apart Houston families and harm the economy. Still, they highlighted that local officials and community organizers have the power to mitigate some of the effects of these policies.
"I can't imagine it'll be anything different this time around," said Elizabeth "Chiqui" Sanchez Kennedy, executive director of legal aid nonprofit Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project. "Except this time around, we will expect it."
These are the Trump campaign promises that local immigrant organizations are watching closely and how they could affect Houston's immigrants.
Mass deportationsTrump has promised to deport the estimated 11.7 million immigrants in the country illegally . This means he would expand immigration enforcement and detention to all undocumented immigrants, rather than focusing on high-priority cases, such as people convicted of certain crimes, as has been the case in other administrations. His plan would require cooperation from multiple federal agencies, an additional 1,000 immigration courts, and 24 times more immigrant detention space, according to a study by the American Immigration Council.
More than 1.6 million immigrants live in the Houston area, and about 31 percent are unauthorized, according to Migration Policy Institute. This includes people who crossed the border illegally, overstayed a visa, have a pending asylum case, or have a status such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). That means more than half a million people in the Houston area could be targeted for removal under Trump's mass deportation plan.
Just how these mass deportations would be carried out is still unclear. It could take the form of ICE raids, ending programs that provide deportation protections, or stripping people of work permits.
An estimated 27,000 Houstonians have DACA, making it the fourth-largest DACA population in the country according to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Another 27,000 people with Temporary Protected Status lived in the Houston area as of 2019, mainly Salvadorans and Hondurans, according to Migration Policy Institute. This number has likely grown as the Venezuelan population has grown rapidly in Houston . Venezuelans were issued TPS by President Joe Biden in 2021.
Trump moved to end DACA and TPS during his first presidency, and doing so again would make people who have been in the U.S. for decades vulnerable to deportation.
"Many people are well into their 50s and 60s and losing their TPS. Losing their livelihood could have devastating consequences in their family's life and family members who may be U.S. citizens," said Cesar Espinosa, executive director of immigrant rights organization FIEL Houston .
Espinosa emphasized that these policies have not yet gone into effect. Immigrants in Houston should prepare for the worst-case scenario, he said, by talking to their families and keeping important documents handy. But they should know that nothing has changed until Trump takes office.
Still, policies enacted in Texas can give a glimpse of what mass deportations might look like. Texas has been sowing the seeds to carry out this deportation machine, said Jennefer Canales-Pelaez, Texas policy attorney and strategist for immigrant rights nonprofit Immigrant Legal Resource Center. The governor has put in place the infrastructure for mass arrests and detention through his $11 billion border initiative Operation Lone Star, she said.
Whatever the approach, the impact could significantly affect Houston's immigrant communities.
"This would mean that people in our communities – that are teachers, pharmacists, nurses or law enforcement officers even – we're going to slowly start seeing people in our communities disappear," Canales-Pelaez said.
Family separationThe Trump administration could push policies at the border and beyond that separate families as a deterrent factor, Espinosa said.
The policy of systematically taking kids from their parents at the border, known as "zero tolerance," became emblematic of his administration's extreme approach to immigration enforcement.
More than 5,000 families were separated, including some who now live in the Houston area. Up to 2,000 still haven't been reunited . Even years after the practice ended, the mental health impact on families has lasted for years.
In 2023, a federal judge barred the government from enacting this policy again. But neither Trump nor his running mate, JD Vance, would clearly state on the campaign trail that they wouldn't resurrect the policy.
Family separation could take a new form under the Trump administration, said Espinosa.
Nationwide, an estimated 28 million people live in a family where at least one person is at risk of deportation, including 5.1 million kids who are U.S. citizens. With more than 4.5 million unauthorized immigrants across the state , Texas would be most affected. This state has the highest percentage of undocumented immigrants within its population, alongside Florida at 14 percent.
These families could be separated as the Escobars were.
"There's so many things that we just have to wait and see what they do," Espinosa said.
Advocates argue that deporting millions of people could negatively impact the economy. This runs contrary to Trump's proposal to improve the economy as voters grow frustrated with soaring food and rent prices.
Trump's mass deportation plan would cost more than $967 billion over a decade , according to a study by the American Immigration Council. Just in the first year of the plan, the gross domestic product would decrease by 1.4 percent , according to the Center for Migration Studies.
Houston would lose hundreds of thousands of essential workers under Trump's immigration plans. In Houston, immigrants fill 51 percent of the positions in the construction industry, nearly 27 percent in the energy industry and 27 percent in health care , according to research by the American Immigration Council.
Stan Marek, CEO of Houston-based construction company Marek, said that Houston business owners and residents alike will feel the impact of mass deportations.
"If we deport anyone, it's gonna affect the ability to build our hospitals, our schools, our churches," Marek said. "It's gonna slow things down. It's gonna cost more."
The workforce would shrink and businesses could shut down, Marek said.
He says the government should conduct background checks on immigrants and get them on payroll so they can work legally and pay taxes, rather than deport them. He encouraged anyone who disagrees with Trump's mass deportation plan to call their elected officials to voice their concerns. "If they don't hear from you and they only hear from the side that wants to deport, they will deport," Marek said.
Sanctuary citiesLocal officials will also play a part in addressing immigrant communities once Trump takes office. Although immigration policy is decided at the federal level, local officials still have the power to limit cooperation with immigration enforcement or implement policies to protect immigrants.
Canales-Pelaez of ILRC cited Democratic candidate Sean Teare's election as District Attorney and the reelection of County Attorney Christian Menefee as indications that Harris County will stand up for its immigrant residents, about 26 percent of the population.
"Here in Houston, I am more hopeful," Canales-Pelaez said. "Now is the time where we really have to turn to our local elected officials and ask them to step in and protect our communities."
With months left until inauguration day, just how a second Trump administration will carry out its policies is still unknown. But Houston's immigrant advocates say they will be ready to react.
"I do have a lot of optimism in our collective advocacy," said Sanchez of GHIRP. "Our collective advocacy will be such a powerful tool in the next four years."
Escobar urged families impacted by Trump's immigration policy to speak up and make their voices heard.
"The number one thing people have to do, they just have to be strong," Escobar said. "They can't give up. They have to fight back."
