MEDICINE/EPA
Reaction to speech by US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Some in “panic”, others in “denial”, and lawyers who “keep their money”. Portuguese community in the USA at risk: “some have been here for 20 years and never legalized”.
That of the President-elect of the United States, Donald Trumpof deporting 11 million irregular immigrants is beginning to raise concerns among thousands of Portuguese people.
Many have lived in the US for decades, integrated into society, but without regular documentation. Trump’s plan “will affect thousands” of Portuguese in this situation, admits Helena Hughes, president of the Immigrants Assistance Center (IAC), an organization supporting the Portuguese-American community.
Trump has reaffirmed his intention to implement mass deportationsclaiming that it will use military forces and even detention camps to carry out the plan.
Hughes explains to the weekly that many Portuguese in the United States arrived as tourists and remained illegallysome for more than 20 years, and despite having started a family, minor children born on American soil do not guarantee the permanence of their parents.
“Portugal is part of a list of countries whose citizens can stay for 90 days in the United States, under a tourist visa. The problem is that many resort to this ploy to get in and never get out. Some have been here for 20 years and never legalized”, says the person in charge.
“As they have lived here for a long time, They think nothing can happen to them. They are in absolute denial”, Maria Vieira Bedard, executive director of SER-Jobs for Progress, tells the newspaper: “as they survived the first Trump administration, they think they will be able to repeat the formula during the second.”
“Some arrive in panic. They don’t know what to do”, he emphasizes.
The situation of vulnerability is aggravated by exploitation of lawyers who promise to regularize documentsbut they do not comply, further harming the situation of immigrants.
“They promise to solve the problem and, in the end, they keep the money. And this problem remains unsolved. I’m talking about lawyers within the Portuguese community itself”, accuses Bedard.
The bureaucracy for legalization in the USA is lengthy. A call letter can take “between 10 to 13 years” to be approved. Despite this, the urgency of many to seek better economic opportunities leads them to risk illegal entry, compromising future chances of regularization.
Although the majority of illegal immigrants in the US originate from Latin America, the Portuguese community is crucial in sectors such as restoration e general services. Business owners in cities like New York highlight the importance of immigrant labor for the operation of companies — but the uncertainty generated by the deportation plan undermines the economic stability of families and communities.
