Kansas activists: U.S. crackdown sends wave of fear through immigrant communities
Sarah Balderas, a Kansas immigration attorney, says Congress is allowing politics to get in the way of its responsibility to modernize federal immigration law. (Photo by Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)
WICHITA — Kansas Immigration Coalition cofounder Yeni Silva-Renteria says trauma of arrests, deportations and family separations amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown raise fear even among immigrants who long ago earned U.S. citizenship.
Silva-Renteria said anxiety among holders of citizenship papers or a cherished green card, as well as those in the United States without lawful status, was growing.
“It’s very, very difficult to just see how separation is happening, the cruelty that is happening,” she said. “There’s just this fear that is happening across the board. The fear that we’re facing … it’s not only for the undocumented population.”
During a gathering of Kansas Democrats on Saturday in Wichita, Silva-Renteria said advocacy on behalf of immigrant communities might in the future be labeled subversive by the federal government and lead to legal challenges to her naturalization. She is executive director of the International Rescue Committee in Wichita.
“I think what I’m doing right now, it can be seen as me fighting against the government,” Silva-Renteria said. “It is a fear, even for someone like me who has been a naturalized citizen for more than 20 years. Before, it was never a question. I could share my story all over the place and I could feel safe. But now, I don’t.”
Silva-Renteria walked across the border from Mexico with her mother at age 10, received permanent resident status in the United States as a teenager and earned a master’s degree in social work at Wichita State University. She is a cofounder, with Wichita immigration attorney Sarah Balderas, of the Kansas Immigration Coalition. Its mission is to safeguard the dignity and well-being of immigrants statewide.
Yeni Silva-Renteria, cofounder of Kansas Immigration Coalition and executive director of International Rescue Committee in Wichita, says immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump is producing widespread fear among immigrants, even people such as herself who hold U.S. citizenship. (Photo by Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)
Risk of assumptions
Balderas, who teaches immigration law at Washburn University, said the political climate in regard to immigration could prompt people to insert themselves into enforcement activities by mistakenly alleging people were in the United States without legal authority.
“You see someone who is from another country speaking a different language, you can’t automatically assume they don’t have status,” she said.
She said general public knowledge of immigration law was so deficient that most people didn’t appreciate a person could hold a temporary visa, be part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program or hold permanent residency status without being proficient in English.
Reading and writing ability enters the picture in a federal regulatory sense when applying for citizenship, she said.
“There are so many misconceptions about immigration, and it’s simply because of a lack of education. Nobody talks about this stuff. We just hear what we hear in the news or we hear what we hear from friends, and it’s really complicated,” Balderas said.
She said the reality was there were millions of people in the United States who would never qualify for lawful permanent resident status, a prerequisite for applying for U.S. citizenship.
“You have a typical situation where you have mom and dad entering the country illegally together,” she said. “They came over 21 years ago because — guess what — their U.S. citizen-born kid is turning 21 and they’re like, ‘Hell, yes, our 21-year-old kid is going to apply for us.’ The problem is that they both, mom and dad, entered illegally. If each of them do not have a spouse or a parent with lawful permanent resident status or U.S. citizenship, they will never be eligible to become a lawful permanent resident.”
Politics of reform
Balderas said U.S. immigration law was designed to keep people out of the country. She said Congress, which is responsible for formation of immigration law, failed to make modest changes that could unclog the immigration system to better accommodate people in the United States without legal status who worked hard, paid taxes and avoided criminal entanglement.
She said the answer in the United States wasn’t debate about a politically fraught amnesty program.
“Everyone’s angry at President Trump. I get it. He is enforcing the immigration laws to the fullest extent possible,” Balderas said. “But we are going to be in this situation every four years if Congress doesn’t make changes in the immigration law. Politics is what’s holding these people hostage.”
U.S. Rep. Ron Estes, a Republican serving the Wichita area, has repeatedly praised the Trump administration for securing the southern border with Mexico. He said U.S. Border Patrol data indicated illegal crossing was at the lowest level since 1970s.
“President Trump promised to secure our southern border, and he has delivered on his promise,” Estes said. “In fiscal year 2025, Border Patrol captured 238,000 illegal immigrants. When Joe Biden was president, 2.2 million illegal immigrants were apprehended at the southern border.”
In September, the Trump administration reported elevated enforcement actions had led to deportation of 400,000 people and the voluntary departure of an estimated 1.6 million people from the United States.
Silva-Renteria said she worked primarily with people from Mexico, India, Vietnam, China, Republic of Congo, Afghanistan and Latin American nations.
In Kansas, an estimated 116,000 people had at least one immigrant parent and 74,000 of these individuals earned the right to vote in elections.
“Something very important, especially for those that are elected officials, pay attention to the number of immigrants that now have voting rights,” Silva-Renteria said.