ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Immigration enforcement raids are now widespread, and few places seem off limits for ICE agents, including highways and city streets. In Florida, highway patrol officers now have the authority to detain drivers based on their immigration status during routine traffic stops. The Trump administration says these partnerships with state and local police are vital to its crackdown on illegal immigration. As NPR's Jasmine Garsd reports, this new reality is changing how immigrants travel, where they go and when they venture out.
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JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: On a very hot Sunday afternoon on the outskirts of Tampa, Florida, several immigrant families are standing outside an evangelical church. The men wear colorful shirts. The women - traditional Guatemalan embroidered dresses. Sunday service is over. These parishioners - about a dozen of them - are waiting for a ride home. Everyone here knows someone who has been stopped recently by Florida Highway Patrol and is now facing deportation. And so everyone knows that there are new rules for driving anywhere - to work, church or the supermarket. Rule No. 1, no foreign flags or Spanish language stickers or advertisements on the car.
ASHLEY AMBROCIO: When companies have, like, in Spanish, you know - it's, like, a big target.
GARSD: This is Ashley Ambrocio, age 19. She's driving the parishioners home today. She's a U.S. citizen, which makes people feel safer about her being behind the wheel. Rule No. 2 these days, drive with someone you know and trust. She moves on to Rule No. 3, no Spanish-language music.
AMBROCIO: If you guys are going to be driving to work, turn the radio on and to an English - you know, English radio, English music - some country music, you know, so they don't tell it's a Spanish car in there.
GARSD: Ambrocio's father, the pastor at this church, was deported recently to Guatemala after 30 years living in the U.S. He had no criminal record. She says everyone out here, regardless of immigration status, is on edge. Fellow churchgoer Maria adds a couple of other rules. She asked that her last name be withheld because her brother was recently detained and she's afraid of retaliation.
MARIA: OK, (non-English language spoken).
GARSD: Rule No. 4, don't drive white cargo vans, the ones typically used by workers. She says, they're getting stopped a lot. Rule No. 5, she says, Don't wear your work uniform or hat in your car. Don't telegraph that you're on your way to or from your cleaning, farming or construction job. But Maria, who owns a construction company, says, many immigrants are still too scared to drive to work.
MARIA: (Non-English language spoken).
GARSD: "One job site is at a complete standstill. Over 30 people didn't show up," she says. "You tell me." NPR reached out to ICE and the Florida Highway Patrol for comment on their criteria for traffic stops. We received no response. Lawsuits, including one filed in connection with the raids in Los Angeles, are challenging what human rights lawyers allege are racially motivated workplace and traffic immigration enforcement. The plaintiffs include day laborers and others who were picked up at bus stops while they were traveling to their jobs. Adam Isacson is with the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America. He believes the Trump administration is trying to normalize the kind of enforcement long seen in border communities.
ADAM ISACSON: It is something that is clearly a goal of this administration, to bring that border vigilance of undocumented immigration to the whole country.
GARSD: If traveling locally is becoming complicated for immigrants, interstate travel has gotten even more complicated.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, again, this will be your final maintenance check and full stop. There will be...
GARSD: On an Amtrak train between New York City and southern Florida, an immigrant from Colombia tells me he works on a farm outside Orlando. He just had an immigration court date in Manhattan, which is where he arrived two years ago. He asked that we use his first initial only, S, because he's afraid of being harassed, despite being in the U.S. legally. That's why he's doing a 22-hour train ride instead of a three-hour flight. He's concerned he might still be detained by immigration officials.
S: (Non-English language spoken).
GARSD: "I feel more comfortable on the train. No one bothers you here." This isn't his first time doing long train travel, he says.
S: (Non-English language spoken).
GARSD: "I came to the U.S. riding on top of a freight train," he says, "all the way up Mexico. On Amtrak," he jokes, "it's different. You get a seat, and you don't have to cling to the top of a freight car." Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, Florida. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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