Part one of three

Immigrant communities in Asheville and Buncombe are living in fear and anxiety over the Trump administration’s vow to conduct the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, targeting an estimated 11 million people who are in the country illegally, starting with violent criminals. 

Local businesses, schools, churches, social services organizations, and government offices are preparing for what could be traumatic social, cultural, and economic effects from the expulsion of potentially thousands of local residents, most of whom, Pew Research found, have lived, worked, studied, and ingrained themselves in the community for more than a decade.

Local officials appear to be perplexed about how to prepare for the possible deportation of what census data and surveys estimate could be thousands of unauthorized migrants in Buncombe and Henderson counties — or reluctant to disclose plans that might attract unwanted attention from immigration officials and anti-immigration politicians.

“Our families, our people are scared,” said Rebecca Sharp, the founder and director of La Esperanza, an outreach program that serves Latino families in Buncombe, Madison, and Yancey counties. Sharp said some immigrants are afraid to leave their homes to get food, or to go to work and school.

Coming in Part II: Civil disobedience? Showdown looms in Buncombe County as Trump administration targets “sanctuary cities”

Census data show that more than 50,000 people who identify as Hispanic or Latino live in western North Carolina, and as many as half are undocumented, according to a recent study from the Charlotte-based Camino Research Institute. 

Statewide, the Pew Research Center estimates that more than 320,000 people in North Carolina are undocumented, representing 37 percent of the state’s immigrant population. More than 19,000 Latinos reside in Buncombe County, comprising 7 percent of the population. Extrapolating from this study and others, somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 could be vulnerable to deportation as the Trump administration ramps up its new immigration policies.

No mass deportations reported yet

No large-scale arrests or deportations have been reported locally as of Feb. 11, but rumors about enforcement actions, often fueled by misinformation and disinformation on social media, are creating uncertainty. 

Thousands of people have been detained across the country, immigration detention centers are over capacity, and images of shackled deportees being loaded into military planes are increasingly familiar. According to a Washington Post report Wednesday, two top officials at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were removed from their jobs amid frustration among Trump officials that officers aren’t ramping up arrests and deportations fast enough to meet the president’s goals.

A Trump executive order instructed ICE to ignore Biden administration restrictions against entering and arresting people in “sensitive” areas, including schools, churches, hospitals and doctor’s offices, daycare centers, funerals, and weddings.

“It puts people on the edge,” said Jennifer, who asked that Asheville Watchdog not publish her last name because members of her family are undocumented immigrants. “They’re filled with fear, anger, anxiety — and a lot of this has to be because we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research and information institution, said mass deportations are unlikely in western North Carolina, at least in the near term, because of the government’s focus on the southern border and its limited capacity to identify, round up, detain, and deport large numbers of people outside of major cities. 

“It is very likely that the Trump administration will do more deportations than it did in their first term,” Ruiz said. “Numbers have increased somewhat, but there’s nowhere near the massive deportations that the administration had advertised.” 

But Tom Homan, a former acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who is serving as Trump’s “border czar,” issued a warning to all undocumented immigrants.

“Bottom line is, under Trump he’s still going to prioritize national security threats and criminals,” Homan said. “But no one’s off the table. If you’re in the country illegally, it’s not OK. If you’re in the country illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”

Immigrants vital to area’s recovery

Immigrants, including those who are in the United States without legal authorization, are employed in industries vital to Asheville’s economy, including cleanup and reconstruction following Tropical Storm Helene. Many lack required documentation or use falsified documents to work in tree and debris removal, roofing, construction, and  landscaping. 

Mass deportations would also be a blow to Asheville’s hospitality and tourism business, affecting dishwashers, cooks, maintenance, housekeeping, and other jobs.

But the potential economic costs are secondary to the social and cultural losses to the community, critics of mass deportation said.

“We value our employees as people, not just as employees, and that’s what it comes down to,” said one Buncombe County employer, who was granted anonymity by The Watchdog because of concerns that identifying him further would jeopardize his workers. “To me, there’s more than being a citizen or not being a citizen. They’re people, so they have a right to be here.”

“In the larger sense, what these people are working toward is what all Americans want — a home, a safe community, a family with a bright future,” the employer said. “If you strive, there’s success for you in the future. That, in some ways, is the American Dream. That’s what our country is founded on.”

Many of Buncombe’s undocumented immigrants live in mixed-status households, with children, spouses, or other relatives who are American citizens. The administration’s “zero tolerance” policies allow separation of families, and require local law enforcement officials to report undocumented migrants to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the Department of Homeland Security.  

“Neither practical nor realistic”

Asheville has a history of ICE raids. 

In August 2008, ICE agents arrested 57 workers at an Asheville-based defense contractor, Mills Manufacturing, as Mountain Xpress noted at the time. Former Asheville City Councilman Carl Mumpower, who also ran for Congress as a conservative Republican, may have tipped ICE off about the workplace, according to the article.

“We are not going to deport all the citizens of other countries who are here illegally,” Mumpower told The Watchdog recently. “That step is neither practical nor realistic.”

“What we are seeing now is an authentic attempt to put a firm, lasting, and responsible stop to our heretofore porous borders,” Mumpower said. “There will be impact for those who have ignored those borders. But for the majority, in my view, the opportunity to remain in America will be a dependable outcome.”

Although the Trump administration has said deporting “criminals” is the top priority, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration sees all undocumented immigrants as “criminals” and isn’t just seeking to deport those who commit violent acts.

More than half of the more than 8,000 people deported between Jan. 20, when Trump issued 10 immigration-related executive orders, and Feb. 2, did not have criminal records, according to a study of public records by the nonprofit investigative news site ProPublica and Texas Monthly. 

Being in the United States illegally is a civil, not a criminal, violation, and many of the thousands of individuals arrested in the first three weeks of the Trump administration have not been convicted of a crime. 

Homan, the official in charge of Trump’s anti-immigration program, vowed to deport “as many as we can get.” 

“If you’re in the country illegally, you’re on the table because it’s not OK to, you know, violate the laws of this country,” Homan said. He also vowed the administration would crack down on “sanctuary cities,” Democratic strongholds like Buncombe County that have policies that deliberately limit their cooperation with ICE’s deportation efforts.

Asheville, Buncombe schools prepare for impact

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the 1982 case Plyler v. Doe established that all children, regardless of their or their parents’ immigration or citizenship status, have access to free, public K-12 education, and those who qualify under poverty guidelines can participate in free or reduced-price breakfast, lunch, and summer food service programs.

There are 26,228 elementary and high school students enrolled in Asheville and Buncombe County schools this year. 

Local public schools do not ask about a parent’s legal status when enrolling their children, Kimberly J. Dechant, chief of staff for Asheville City Schools, told The Watchdog, and can’t deny enrollment based on immigration status. “We serve all children in our community,” Dechant said.

Therefore, Dechant said, ACS doesn’t estimate how many of its 4,000-plus students are undocumented or who have one or more parent lacking residency permission. 

According to Pew Research Center findings, 8.9 percent of K-12 students in North Carolina are children of one or more undocumented immigrants. Extrapolating those numbers for Buncombe County Schools would mean that more than 1,900 students are vulnerable to having a parent deported; in Asheville schools, more than 350 students would be affected. 

Last week, in a message sent to parents of ACS students, Dechant wrote: “Recent changes to federal immigration regulations may impact some families in our school community. We understand that these changes can be a source of anxiety and uncertainty.”

“We want to emphasize that Asheville City Schools remains firmly committed to providing a welcoming, supportive, and inclusive learning environment for all students, regardless of their immigration status. Our schools are safe spaces where every student has the right to learn and thrive.”

But Trump’s executive order allowing immigration enforcement in schools means schools must plan for immigration status inquiries. ICE agents still face legal limits on school campuses, such as needing judicial (as opposed to administrative) warrants and restrictions under Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) on accessing student records.

“If we receive a warrant, we’re going to honor it,” Dechant said. “If it’s just a subpoena for records, they’ll be told to come to the central office. In order to obtain records they have to have proper documentation.”

BCS Superintendent Rob Jackson also wrote to parents: “At this time, BCS is working with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and our school board attorney to learn more about how changes may impact our school system. We are closely monitoring the situation and are committed to providing ongoing support to our students and school communities.”

“Maintaining a place where each and every student feels safe and secure is always our number one priority,” Jackson wrote. 

As The Watchdog reported earlier, the University of North Carolina  Asheville has instructed all its employees to cooperate fully with federal immigration officials. “UNC Asheville employees must not interfere with or obstruct law enforcement actions,” John Dougherty, UNCA’s chief of staff and general counsel, wrote Feb. 4. “If an officer presents a valid warrant or court order, do not attempt to prevent its execution.” 

The number of undocumented immigrants working or studying at UNCA, including those whose student visas have expired, is not known.

Businesses fear disruptions

Kit Cramer, president and CEO of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, said the issue of workers’ immigration status and any possible local or federal enforcement action is “going to be an ongoing conversation for us, because, frankly, we’ve been so tied up with disaster relief that getting to other types of conversations has been difficult thus far.”

“But we also have to get back to some of the things that impact business on the whole and certainly immigration policy will,” Cramer said.

Cramer noted that Buncombe County had the lowest unemployment rate in the state prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down most tourism and caused unemployment to skyrocket. The rate had returned to the lowest statewide until Helene hit, pushing it to the highest in the state, 8.8 percent. No other city nationwide had a bigger year-over-year increase in unemployment as of November, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As the recovery continues, Cramer expects demand for workers to again ramp up.

“When you consider how low historically our unemployment rate has been, we always need workers,” Cramer said. “We need to be a competitive place for people to come, and so Hispanic, non-Hispanic, I’m looking for every worker we can find.”

Removal of a significant number of workers could drive up wages, Cramer said, possibly disrupt supply chains and the fulfillment of business contracts, and cause other “unintended consequences.” That could include pushing food and grocery prices even higher. 

The chamber and its Public Policy Committee have been working on Helene-related topics and have not formulated any stance on immigration enforcement policies at this point, Cramer said. In the past, the chamber has acknowledged the importance of different ethnicities and migrants from all over the world “that have come here and powered the workforce and the economy.”

Restaurants would feel the impact of deportations immediately, said Rich Cundiff, owner of Rocky’s Hot Chicken Shack, whose restaurants use the E-Verify system to electronically confirm the employment eligibility of their workers. “It seems to me that we’re probably looking at 10 to 15 percent of the restaurant workforce [locally] as Hispanic, but I’m really guessing,” he said.

“It’s going to hurt us bad if we lose our Latino workers,” Cundiff said. “We already are hurting from Helene, and the workforce has shifted significantly at this point, and it would just add insult to injury.”

“Everybody’s afraid, and for good reason,” Cundiff said. “They’re terrified that somebody’s gonna haul them off. I’m afraid for them.” 

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle is a staff reporter and columnist. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. Peter H. Lewis is The Watchdog’s executive editor. Email plewis@avlwatchdog.org. Linus Schafer-Goulthorpe is a student reporting intern. The Watchdog’s local reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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