McALLEN, Texas — Inside the brightly lit law offices here of immigration attorney Alex Martinez, the front desk has been buzzing with activity.
Positioned on a quiet street corner just 8 miles north of the bridge that separates the U.S. and Mexico, the law firm has seen a notable uptick in phone calls and in-person visits from people looking for an immigration attorney.
Here in Hidalgo County, where President-elect Donald Trump won by just under 3 percentage points last month, many of those customers say they or their family members voted for him.
Until this year, Hidalgo County hadn’t voted Republican for president since 1972. Now, it’s one of 14 counties on or near the border that voted for Trump — many for the first time in decades as well.
“They believe that he is good for business,” Martinez said. “It seems to be more important that they have money coming into the family than them securing a legal status or not being removed.”
In the 35 states that a 2022 Pew Research Center report identified as having undocumented immigrant populations above 50,000, more than half went for Trump this election. This leaves immigrant rights groups, immigration attorneys and undocumented immigrants in those states in a difficult position: gearing up to fight upcoming immigration policies espoused by Trump, supported by a majority of voters in their region.
Kelli Stump, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, has seen the phenomenon firsthand, along with many of her organization’s nearly 16,000 member attorneys. Based in Oklahoma, a state where Trump won every county, Stump said a “significant” number of her clients either voted for Trump or have family members who did.
“They don’t believe that Trump is going to deport their family member. Trump is going to deport the criminal or the person who just came across the border recently, Stump said, “They think that their family member might be safe.”
Through email chains and social media, she sees fellow attorneys doing their best to get ahead of potentially drastic changes to immigration enforcement, including the deportation of whole families and an end to birthright citizenship, both of which Trump reiterated as policy goals in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” earlier this month.
“We are gearing up for the war. We just don’t know where the battle is going to be yet,” Stump said.
In the town of San Juan, just 15 minutes east of McAllen, organizers with La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), an immigration advocacy group, say they’re preparing in similar ways.
Joaquín García, the organization’s director of community organizing, said he’s noticed more fear and uncertainty in this border community since the election, especially after Trump’s suggestion that entire families could be deported together, regardless of their immigration status.
“People hear that, and they are in fear. I’ve had people tell me, ‘What’s gonna happen?’ Or ‘I became naturalized a couple of years ago. Are they gonna come after me? Am I still at risk?’” García said. “We’re also telling people, if you’re a U.S. resident, maybe you should consider applying for U.S. citizenship to have a little more protection, but now we don’t even know if that protection will still be something that’s going to safeguard you from being deported to a country that maybe you’ve never been in.’”
García’s organization is one of several across the country that are either hosting or planning to launch “know your rights” information sessions for the public, including Siembra NC in North Carolina, Project New Yorker in Queens and the UNLV Immigration Clinic in Nevada. In Kansas City, Missouri, immigration attorneys have begun passing out “red cards” that list residents’ rights should they be approached by immigration officials.
García said he’s been advising families to keep an easily accessible cache of documents somewhere in their homes in case of a removal order. That file would contain money, evidence that they’ve been living in the U.S. and paying taxes, their birth certificate from their country of origin and — if they have children who are U.S. citizens — power of attorney that allows someone to act on their parents’ behalf in legal matters in case the parents are deported.
That’s exactly the kind of precaution Maria, whose last name is being withheld because of her undocumented immigration status, is working on now.
Maria left her home country 18 years ago, leaving her then-infant son with extended family to earn a living doing farm work in the U.S. Since then, she and her husband had twin daughters, who are now in their teens and are U.S. citizens. She pays LUPE $40 a year for access to legal and other services in Hidalgo County.
She has been paying attention to the incoming president’s words through news reports and social media.
“Now we are more than scared, we are frightened, tortured, day after day,” she said in Spanish.
She said her family doesn’t ask for anything — “we know how to live with very little” — but she has one request to the incoming Trump administration: that her family be allowed to stay together, so her daughters can have a better life in the country where they were born.