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“Have you all heard of SB 4?” Alain Cisneros asks his audience at an immigrant rights presentation. A Guatemalan couple, a Honduran mother with her teenage daughter and toddler son, and a Thai father and teenage son nod in response. 

“What have you heard?” he asks.

“That we’ll be deported,” the Honduran mother answers.  

Cisneros, an organizer with Houston-based immigrant rights organization Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha, known as FIEL, reassures his audience that he doesn’t want them to panic. 

“But we want you to have an understanding so that you can defend yourself when you need to,” he said. 

In preparation of Senate Bill 4, the controversial law that will allow Texas law enforcement to arrest people suspected of crossing into Texas illegally, FIEL and other immigrant rights organizations are hosting workshops and leading community outreach initiatives to prepare immigrants for what’s to come. 

The Department of Justice and ACLU of Texas have sued the state of Texas over the law, which they call unconstitutional. On Feb. 29, a judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking the law from taking effect on March 5 on the grounds that the law conflicts with federal immigration law. But the legal battle continues. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately appealed the ruling, saying that “Texas has the right to defend itself.”

FIEL welcomed the injunction as a key first step, but cautioned against declaring a final victory over the law in a press release Feb. 29. So, the organization and others in Houston are forging ahead and preparing for their worst-case scenario: full implementation of the law.

“If you are arrested or they try to deport you unjustly, we’re going to be there to defend you. We’re going to do what we have to do to ensure that it doesn’t happen,” Cisneros told the group during the presentation. “We’re not going to stand by idly, and we don’t want you to either.”

To protect themselves, he said, they have to understand the law. SB 4 makes illegal entry into Texas a state crime punishable with up to six months in jail. Any Texas peace officer – which includes local police, sheriff’s offices and even Texas Parks and Wildlife – can enforce the law. A magistrate can then order a person removed from the country. The law applies throughout the state, although Gov. Greg Abbott has said the law is meant to target the increased crossings at the southern border. 

The broad nature of the law and fears of racial profiling have worried immigrant communities in Houston, even U.S. citizens and longtime Houston residents. Cisneros instructed participants to make sure their car registration and plates are up to date to decrease the chances of being pulled over, and to carry a form of identification, such as a Harris County library card or passport from their home county, if they don’t have a driver’s license. If questioned by police, he encouraged them to cooperate and act cordially. However, they shouldn’t sign anything or answer a question if they don’t understand it. And they don’t need to reveal their immigration status. 

Immigrant fears

Bernardo Gonzalez and his wife, Imelda, who have lived in the country illegally since they migrated from Guatemala 16 years ago, came to the workshop because they were worried about what would happen to their kids if they were targeted under the law.

The pair haven’t yet talked about their immigration status with their 4-year-old daughter, 7-year-old son, and 16-year-old daughter because they don’t want to worry them. But the fear that they might not come home one day has heightened since hearing about SB 4. 

“If I’m not there, I don’t even want to think about what would happen to them,” said Gonzalez, who works in construction while his wife is the children’s full-time caregiver. 

Gonzalez said he has started to talk to his oldest daughter about what to do if he or his wife is arrested, so that she knows where to find the family’s important documents and paperwork.

At another event on Feb. 22 hosted by state Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston, audience members worried about workplace raids, landlords taking advantage of tenants, and racial profiling of their kids.

Sarah Cruz, a policy and advocacy strategist at the ACLU of Texas, explained that SB 4 cannot be enforced in primary and secondary schools, places of worship, and hospitals or health care facilities. The law also creates a crime for illegal reentry and another for refusing to comply with an order of removal, both punishable with sentences of up to 20 years. Another law that increases penalties for human trafficking went into effect in early February. 

“The sentiment behind this presentation is not to instill more fear within our community,” Cruz said as she presented her slides in English and Spanish. “As we face this new reality, we want to offer our community some sort of layer of protection so that they can continue to navigate comfortably and feel safe within their community.” 

Coco Martinez, 64, attended the workshop to learn more about the law and what it could mean for her and her community. She is a U.S. citizen and speaks English, but people often speak to her in Spanish when she goes to the mall or the supermarket, so she’s worried about racial profiling. 

“They’re going to be looking at you or even stopping you just because of the way you look,” Martinez said. “That’s scary.”

She also worries about the increased penalties for human smuggling, and how the law could be interpreted to target people just for giving a ride to friends or family.

“Even if I was to drive my cousin that’s undocumented, what’s gonna happen to me? What’s gonna happen to her?” Martinez said. 

Questions remain

Walle called the law “egregious and unconstitutional,” and criticized Republican lawmakers for using harsh immigration laws to try to win votes. He stressed the importance of educating communities about SB 4. 

“It’s about empowering the community,” he said. 

Many law enforcement agencies have yet to make public statements about their enforcement policy less than a week before the law will go into effect, causing uncertainty about how it will be implemented in Houston and the surrounding areas.

As of Feb. 28, the sheriff’s departments of Fort Bend and Chambers counties confirmed to the Houston Landing that they will not prioritize enforcement of the law. Fort Bend’s Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Feb. 6 that “justice is blind means that race or ethnicity is not a reason to stop anyone on that basis alone.”

Gonzalez, the Guatemalan immigrant, said he feels calmer after attending FIEL’s Know Your Rights workshop. If he has an encounter with the police after SB 4 takes effect, he will know what to do, or at least will know an organization he and his family can turn to.

“Sadly, we are often seen as criminals for being immigrants,” Gonzalez said. “But we are families that just come here to work and improve our families’ lives.”

This story has been updated to include new information regarding a federal judge blocking SB 4.

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