(start with a scene. I don\u2019t have a good one yet. This is a backup in case I don\u2019t find a better one: Just two days after the presidential election results were announced, a group of recent migrants gather around a dozen or so round tables inside Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. They are here to share their stories with a group of student journalists. The environment was casual and welcoming, despite the tension in the air from the looming second Trump presidency just around the corner. One of those migrants is Sebastian Galeano, a 29-year-old asylum seeker from Colombia.<\/p>\n
Galeano has only been in the U.S. for seven months. He says he might get killed if he goes back home. [insert quote from Galeano])<\/p>\n
Although it is not yet clear how Trump will enforce his proposed immigration policies like mass deportations, immigrants and advocates are bracing themselves. Most are preparing for increases in detention, deportation, and family separation, in addition to fear within immigrant communities.<\/p>\n
Trump made gains with groups of voters that the Republican party has not had this level of success with in recent years. For example, Trump won over many Black and Latino voters, especially men, which surprised people who were not closely following these groups in the past few years. He also made gains with young voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[List key results\/stats]<\/p>\n
Experts who study political trends among Latino voters, however, were not surprised by the results. Julio Ricardo Varela, MSNBC columnist and founder of The Latino Newsletter, wrote on X<\/a> as election results rolled in, \u201c[I] am not engaging anyone who can\u2019t understand why Latinos voted who they voted this election cycle. If you need explanations today, you can read my last 3 years of work. This was always possible. The results do not surprise me.\u201d<\/p>\n Patricia Fern\u00e1ndez-Kelly, a professor of sociology and director of the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University, says her research shows that anti-immigration sentiment is present even among immigrant populations. The longer an immigrant stays in a country, the more they absorb some of the attitudes of the larger population.<\/p>\n \u201cOlder immigrants from anywhere, the longer they have resided in the country, the less sympathetic they are going to be towards more recently-arrived immigrants,\u201d she said. \u201cEven fairly recently arrived immigrants don’t want other immigrants, even from their own country.\u201d<\/p>\n Recent migrants from Central and South America are reacting differently to Trump\u2019s gains among Latino voters. While some are disappointed in what they feel is their own community turning on them, others understand where the resentment is coming from, even if they don\u2019t agree with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Luz Herrera, one of the migrants at the church in Brooklyn, says she and her family are getting many services that previous migrants did not get, which can understandably lead to frustration and resentment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Herrera, a 39-year-old asylum seeker from Ecuador, is one of the over 200,000<\/a> bused to New York City from the southern border, along with her husband and four children. They are currently staying at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, one of the many places functioning as shelters for migrants. She and her husband have work permits and are undergoing the asylum process. She has access to English language classes. Her children are all studying.<\/p>\n [Luz Herrera quote about fleeing because of violent groups, so understanding the sentiment of wanting people to be safe]<\/p>\n \u201cWe aren\u2019t criminals, but there are some who give us a bad name,\u201d says Sebastian Galeano. \u201cLet\u2019s hope Trump doesn\u2019t get confused between us and them.\u201d<\/p>\n Though some of these migrants are hopeful that Trump will only go after criminals, he has vowed to target all undocumented migrants, so it is not clear whether he will make that distinction. For instance, Trump\u2019s inflammatory rhetoric targeting Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, is leading many of them to leave Springfield<\/a>. They are deciding to leave despite being there lawfully \u2013 many of them are on Temporary Protected Status (TPS).<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s campaign pushed forth highly inflammatory anti-immigration rhetoric, but Trump has not shared<\/a> many details on how he plans to accomplish his sweeping immigration proposals. At an Arizona rally in October, Trump mentioned wanting to hire an additional 10,000 agents to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, with no plan for how he will accomplish that or secure funding for it. Trump has also proposed mass deportations of millions of people and building new detainment centers.<\/p>\n