#immigrant-fear

#immigrant-fear

In mid-January, I gathered my staff of 10 for a training session on what to do if ICE agents showed up at my restaurant. It came after days of hearing how concerned the team was following news of an increased presence of ICE agents in Portland. This is not the kind of information we, as restaurant workers, are accustomed to needing to know and relay. This is all so new. We're entering the unknown. And people are scared of the unknown.

I was sitting with Trygve Olsen, a big man in a wool hat and puffy vest, who lifted his phone to show me a text with the news. It was his 50th birthday, and one of the coldest days of the year. I asked him whether he was doing anything special to celebrate. "What should I be doing?" he replied. "Should I sit at home and open presents? This is where I'm supposed to be."

When National Guard troops were deployed here earlier this month, President Donald Trump promised that they would fight crime and make the streets safe again. But in neighborhoods like Columbia Heights, the takeover has created a real sense of terror for immigrants, who say they feel like they are being racially targeted and living in a dystopian version of the city they love.