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WTOP spoke with members of the D.C. region’s immigrant community for their feedback on President Donald Trump’s moves against immigrants and how the community has responded.
President Donald Trump’s return to the White House brought along a sweeping immigration crackdown when he said he would deport “the worst of the worst.”
That pledge has led to raids and arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, including many people currently detained with no criminal convictions. According to a Department of Homeland Security report in September, over 2 million people have been deported or willingly left the United States since Trump’s inauguration.
A Pew Research Center analysis found that as of June 2025, 19% of the U.S. labor force were immigrants, down from 20%, with Trump’s anti-immigrant actions becoming a main factor for the drop.
Those actions have brought fear and anxiety to the immigrant communities throughout the nation.
WTOP spoke with members of the D.C. region’s immigrant community for their feedback on Trump’s moves against immigrants and how the community has responded.
Finding work
José arrived in the United States from Mexico in 1995. He’s been living in the D.C. region for over a year, working either for companies in plumbing-related jobs or for the Workers Co-op Without Borders through CASA, one of the largest immigration rights organizations in the country.
While he has been able to find work, José told WTOP he knows many of his friends and co-workers are struggling to make ends meet.
“I have heard that for many people, jobs are scarce because of what’s happening,” José said in Spanish.
Yet, the recent government shutdown is affecting José and others as work has dried up.
“A lot of the work the companies got was from government workers,” José said. “And now, they don’t want to spend.”
‘Risks of being profiled’
Cesar Garzon, a naturalized citizen from Venezuela, works for a worker-owned landscaping company, the Swamp Rose Co-op, based out of Silver Spring, Maryland. He said while the economic outlook led to some cancellations, he and his team have remained busy with steady work for the last eight months.
However, Garzon admitted it has been harder to find people who can help provide an additional hand.
“There has been a reducing workforce,” Garzon said. “A lot of people have kind of decided to either leave or they’re just not working.”
With the current political climate, Garzon said he and his co-workers established some strategies in case they are wrongly identified during a possible interaction with an ICE agent, including setting up a contact person.
“We face the risks of being profiled, and of course, that’s not fun,” Garzon said.
New skills to find new jobs
Lindolfo Carballo, senior director of the community economic development department for CASA, told WTOP that he has seen an uptick in immigrants applying for jobs at the organization’s job centers. However, he has also seen an increase in immigrants attempting to learn skills for different types of work.
But there is still some fear in the community. Carballo said the Trump administration’s continued actions are making it difficult for employers to hire workers and for workers to find jobs.
“The truth of the matter is that there is a need for workers,” he said. “It’s a very large need of workers.”
Carballo encourages those immigrants who are still in the U.S. to continue fighting for their rights.
“We need to fight back,” Carballo said. “We need to be resilient. We need to stand up for our rights and, of course, right now, it’s very difficult. But we know that we will overcome.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Jose Umana
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