‘Pure fear’: Trump presidency has Las Vegas Hispanics worried about their future

By Chris Kudialis, Camalot Todd, Ricardo Torres-Cortez

Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Sonya Hernandez quickly finds the picture in her cellphone. It’s of her 18-year-old son Jeswynn at McCarran International Airport before leaving for the U.S. Army.

The photo was taken on Tuesday, Election Day in America. He could have gone to college on a partial soccer scholarship, but elected to serve his country.

“See Mr. Trump, we’re not criminals,” Hernandez said in Spanish Wednesday from a laundromat parking lot near Eastern and Owens avenues.

Hernandez and her husband entered the country illegally from Mexico, part of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants nationwide who are now facing uncertainty after Donald Trump upset Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.

One of the cornerstones of Trump’s campaign was his hard-line stance on illegal immigration, which includes building a wall on the southern United States border to separate the country from Mexico, and deporting those like the Hernandezes who are undocumented.

An emotional Hernandez, like others in her situation Wednesday morning in the initial hours after Trump’s victory, was faced with fear. She’s not sure she’ll be in the United States when her son returns from his four-year military tour of duty.

At La Choza, a small restaurant near the laundromat, owned and frequented by native Mexicans, manager Cleyton Gonzalez said the reality of a Trump presidency has given rise to fear among his community.

Gonzalez said Trump is biased against Hispanics, citing the president-elect’s June 2015 comments calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals as a reason why “he’s especially against us.”

“All of his words are just wrong; he didn’t go about it the right way,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez, a 14-year Las Vegas resident who immigrated from Mexico, plans to be persistent in encouraging family members to get their green cards, “before it’s too late.”

He anticipated the process will become slower and more difficult as increased numbers of immigrants seek legal documentation before Trump takes office.

“I find it hard to believe they’re just going to deport everyone, but my people are definitely less comfortable,” he said.

At the Eastern Indoor Swap Meet, 1560 N. Eastern Ave., shopper Laura Arenas echoed that sentiment. A 20-year Las Vegas resident originally from Mexico City, Arenas said her undocumented friends and family have already started preparing to either leave the country on their own or risk being deported.

“People are asking me when he’s taking office, trying to make arrangements,” Arenas explained. “It’s pure fear at this point, and people don’t know if he’s actually going to deport everyone.”

Las Vegas immigration attorney Darren Heyman said Trump could overturn the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which protects some undocumented children who entered the U.S. before 2007 or their 16th birthday from deportation for two years and allows them to work. The policy, initiated by President Barack Obama’s administration in 2012, can be overturned by Trump because it is an executive order, Heyman said.

Heyman expects a spike in applications for green cards and U.S. citizenship during the coming months, in addition to an increase in marriage licenses between immigrants and U.S. citizens before Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Applying for documentation under a Trump administration is where things could get complicated.

Under current federal law, two major kinds of undocumented immigrants exist — people who are inspected, but their visas expired and those who entered the country without inspection. Heyman advises those in the latter group not to leave the country because doing so would make returning and attaining legal status more difficult.

Heyman said individuals under DACA have an opportunity to re-enter the country legally by requesting the U.S. government’s permission to exit the country beforehand, for specific incidents like visiting an ailing family member abroad.

Most DACA individuals re-entering the U.S. are then considered inspected, he said.

Heyman says there’s misinformation in the Latino community about qualifications for U.S. status and citizenship, especially those who look to “notarios” instead of attorneys for advice. The term “notario publico” translates to “notary public.” While a notary public is only authorized to witness the signatures of forms in the U.S., in many Latin American countries it refers to someone who receives the equivalent of a law license, according to the American Bar Association.

Trump’s upset election victory came as a surprise to many in the Las Vegas Hispanic community. But the Hispanic vote nationwide may have contributed to his success.

CNN estimated that nearly 30 percent of Hispanic voters chose Trump, compared to 27 percent of Hispanics that cast their vote for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012. A total of 65 percent of Hispanics voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, compared to 71 percent who chose Obama in 2012.

When Sandy Julian, a 33-year-old U.S. Navy veteran and mother of three, explained to her three children — ages 4, 8 and 9 — about Trump being elected Wednesday morning, her eldest son started crying. She voted for Clinton.

“We might have lost this election with Donald Trump, but my kids will learn as they get older they will have a voice, they will vote one day and they can pick a better candidate,” Julian said. “America needs to know that despite our differences we need to be connected. ... America is built on the backs of immigrants.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the month of Trump's remarks about Mexican immigrants. | (November 11, 2016)