A Half Moon Bay nonprofit devoted to supporting Latino immigrants and farmworkers obtained a postcard crammed with anti-immigrant rhetoric this week, at some point after President Donald Trump took workplace.
Ayudando Latinos A Soñar, or ALAS, has been offering companies and advocating for the seaside city’s farm employee group for greater than 10 years.
When ALAS staff acquired into work on Tuesday, they had been horrified to find a postcard of their mail that contained messages intimidating immigrants resembling “Report illegal aliens” and “There is nowhere to hide.”
“One of my staff called me and she was crying,” mentioned ALAS Government Director and Founder Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga in an interview. “They had received the postcard in our mail and asked me to come right away. Seeing it was really shocking and very difficult because it’s really concerning.”
The postcard, which was postmarked in Oakland, incorporates a listing of locations the place immigrants will be discovered resembling faculties, work, church, eating places and “in your neighborhood.”
It additionally has a cellphone quantity and on-line hyperlink that can be utilized to report undocumented immigrants to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
The identical postcard has additionally been obtained by a number of workplaces of United Farm Employees of America, the nation’s largest farmworkers union, they mentioned in a social media put up.
Within the space the place a return handle is meant to be, a handwritten observe reads “Have your bags packed – Trump’s coming!”
A postcard obtained by Ayudando Latinos A Soñar (ALAS) a non revenue advocating for immigrants in Half Moon Bay, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. The brand new United States administration is deporting undocumented indviduals.(ALAS through Bay Metropolis Information
For a lot of undocumented immigrants, the brand new Trump presidency has stoked fears as he has promised to “launch the biggest deportation in American history,” he mentioned throughout an October rally final 12 months at Madison Sq. Backyard in New York Metropolis.
Since taking workplace on Monday, Trump has signed a number of government orders geared toward cracking down on immigration and making ready for deportations.
He tried to repeal birthright citizenship and declared a nationwide emergency on the southern border.
A number of weeks in the past, U.S. Border Patrol performed introduced raids in Bakersfield that led to dozens of arrests.
“We’re all really worried about what’s happening,” Hernandez-Arriaga mentioned. “It’s really sad for our farm worker community, our immigrant community, our essential workers … they’re the backbone of our economy.”
Along with the postcard and Trump’s anti-immigration government orders this week, Half Moon Bay’s farmworker group is grieving since Thursday marks the second anniversary of the mass capturing that killed seven farmworkers within the coastal city.
“We have so much sadness around this tragic event, and now we’re having to worry about threats to our Latino community and our farmworkers from the president,” Hernandez-Arriaga mentioned.
It was the deadliest capturing within the historical past of San Mateo County and revealed the deplorable working situations that some agricultural laborers endure.
We’re all actually nervous about what’s occurring.
Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, ALAS Government Director and FoundeR
ALAS is about to carry a vigil service with musical performances to commemorate and honor the seven victims, most of whom had been migrants.
Transferring ahead, ALAS is planning to rent a full-time safety guard as a security measure in response to the postcard. They’re additionally working to get an immigration lawyer within the wake of rising fears of deportation.
“In the history of our agency, we’ve never had a security guard,” Hernandez-Arriaga mentioned. “We’ve been working on this for a long time, but now it’s critical that we find an immigration attorney to be part of our team.”
“We’re taking everything very seriously. We’re not gonna let this paralyze us.”
