From snow-covered cities to the Mexican border

As it snowed lightly outside, worshipers gathered at Chicago's Lincoln United Methodist Church to pray and plan for what will happen when Donald Trump takes office next week, when the president-elect has promised to begin the largest-ever deportation of immigrants undocumented in US history.

“The 20th (of January) will be here before we know it,” the Rev. Tanya Lozano-Washington told the congregation after passing out steaming mugs of hot Mexican chocolate and coffee to warm the crowd of about 60 people.

Located in Pilsen, a predominantly Latino neighborhood, the church has long been a center for pro-immigration activists in the city's large Hispanic community. But Sunday services are now in English only, as private services in Spanish have been cancelled.

The decision to move them online was made because of concerns that these gatherings could be targeted by anti-immigration activists or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The president-elect has said he would deport millions of illegal immigrants, threatened workplace strikes, and reports suggest he could remove the long-standing policy that made churches off-limits to ICE arrests.

According to one parishioner, American-born David Cruzeno, “the threat is very real. She is very much alive.”

Cruzeno said his mother entered the country illegally from Mexico but has worked and paid taxes in the U.S. for 30 years.

“With the new administration coming in, it's almost like a persecution,” he told the BBC. “I feel like we're being singled out and targeted in a way that's unfair, even though we cooperate (with) this country endlessly.”

But across the country, more than 1,400 miles (2,253 km) to the south in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, another predominantly immigrant community has a very different view of the impending opening — a sign of how sharply divided Latino communities are over illegal immigration and Donald Trump. Trump's approach to the US-Mexico border.

“Immigration is essential … but in the right way,” said local resident David Porras, a rancher, farmer and botanist.

“But with Trump, we're going to do it right.

The region is separated from Mexico only by the river's dark, shallow, narrow waters and patches of dense vegetation and mesquite — locals say the daily realities of life on the border are increasingly opening their eyes to what many see as the dangers of illegal immigration.

“I had families (of migrants) knocking on my back door, asking for water, for shelter,” said Amanda Garcia, a resident of Starr County, where nearly 97 percent of residents identify as Hispanic, making it the most Hispanic county in the US outside of Puerto Rico.

“We had an incident once where a young lady was alone with two men and you could tell she was tired – and abused.”

In more than a dozen interviews in two of the Rio Grande Valley's constituent counties — Starr and neighboring Hidalgo — residents described a litany of other border-related incidents, ranging from waking up to migrants on their property to witnessing arrests at drug cartel hideouts , or dangerous high-speed chases between authorities and smugglers.

Many in predominantly Hispanic Texas are immigrants themselves or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Once a reliable Democratic stronghold in otherwise red Texas, Starr County swung in Trump's favor in the 2024 election. – the first time the district was won by Republicans in over 130 years.

Nationally, Trump won about 45% of the Hispanic vote, a whopping 14 percentage point jump from the 2020 election.

Locals say the victory in Starr County was due in no small part to Trump's stance on the border.

“We live in a country of law and order,” said Demesio Guerrero, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Mexico who lives in the city of Hidalgo, across the international bridge from the cartel-hit Mexican city of Reynosa.

“We should be able to (tell) who's coming in and out,” Mr. Guerrero added, speaking in Spanish just meters from a brown, tall metal barrier that represents the U.S. end. “Otherwise, this country is lost.

Like other Trump supporters in the Rio Grande Valley, Mr Guerrero has said – repeatedly – that he is “not against immigration”.

“But they have to do it the right way,” he said. “Like the others.”

Trump is “not anti-immigrant or racist at all,” agreed Marisa Garcia, a resident of Rio Grande City in Starr County.

“We're just tired of them (undocumented immigrants) coming in and thinking they can do whatever they want on our property or land and take advantage of the system,” she added. “It's not racist to say things need to change and we need to take advantage of that too.”

Support for deportations is so strong that the Texas state government offered Donald Trump 1,400 acres (567 hectares) of land just outside Rio Grande City to build detention centers for undocumented migrants, a controversial move described by the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU) in Texas as “mass incarceration” that would “fuel civil rights violations.”

While the piece of land — nestled between a quiet farm-to-market road and the Rio Grande — is currently quiet, city officials believe it could eventually be a boon to the area.

“If you look at it from a development perspective, it's great for the economy of the city,” Rio Grande City Manager Gilberto Milan told the BBC.

“Obviously being a containment zone has some negative connotations,” he said. “You can look at it that way, but obviously you need a place to house these people.

The number of migrants coming through Mexico has fallen sharply – with last month's crossings the lowest since January 2020.

But the problem is still very much present on the streets of cities like Chicago, far from the southern border.

It is one of several Democratic-governed cities that have passed so-called “sanctuary city” laws that limit local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

In response from 2022. Republican governors in southern states like Texas and Florida sent thousands of immigrants north by bus and plane.

Tom Homan, who was tapped by Trump to lead border policy, told a Republican meeting in Chicago last month that the Midwestern city would be “ground zero” for mass deportations.

“On January 21st, you're going to be looking for a lot of ICE agents in your city looking for criminals and gang members,” Homan said. “Count on it. It will happen.”

Many local politicians, including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and state governor JB Pritzker, continue to support sanctuary city laws, called here the Welcoming City Ordinance.

But politics is not loved by everyone. Trump made gains in many Latino neighborhoods in November.

Recently, two Hispanic Democratic lawmakers tried to change the ordinance and allow Chicago police some cooperation with federal authorities. Their measure was blocked Wednesday by Johnson and his progressive allies.

For now, worshipers at Lincoln United Methodist are making plans and watching closely as Trump's plans play out.

“I'm scared, but I can't imagine how undocumented people feel,” said D. Camacho, a 21-year-old legal immigrant from Mexico, who was among the congregation at the church on Sunday.

Mexican consular officials in Chicago and elsewhere in the US also said they were working on a mobile app that would allow Mexican migrants to alert relatives and consular officials if they were detained and could be deported.

Authorities in Mexico have described the system as a “panic button.”

Organizers from Lincoln United also connect with legal experts, advising locals on how to manage their finances or arrange child care in the event of deportation, and help create identification cards with details of immigrant family members and other information on English language.

And several second-generation immigrants here said they are working to improve their Spanish so they can convey legal information or translate for migrants interviewed by authorities.

“If someone with five children is taken, who will take them? Will they go to social services? Will the family be separated?” said the Rev. Emma Lozano, the mother of the Rev. Tanya Lozano-Washington and a longtime community activist and church elder.

“These are the questions people have,” she said. “How can we protect our families – what's the plan?”